Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, it may be helpful to the House to know that later this morning my noble friend Lord Rooker will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is being made in the House of Commons about unfolding events, of which we are all too well aware. The Statement will be repeated at a convenient time as soon after 1 pm as possible.

Plastic Bags

Lord Dubs: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What is their estimate of the number of plastic bags used annually in the United Kingdom; and what are the implications for waste disposal and the marine environment.

Lord Bach: My Lords, the total number of single use carrier bags used in the UK is between 8 billion and 10 billion per year. These go on to form approximately 80,000 tonnes of waste plastic, which equates to 0.3 per cent of all domestic waste. Surveys have shown that plastic bags of all sorts, some of which will be single use carrier bags, comprise a small proportion of marine litter, but plastic litter in the marine environment can kill and injure substantial numbers of cetaceans, birds and turtles.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the information he has given in answer to my Question. Nevertheless, he will be aware that plastic bags can last for hundreds of millions of years. Even if they are a small percentage of the total waste in this country, they are still significant in the damage they cause. It would be the easiest thing in the world for the Government to put a tax on plastic bags, as has been done in other countries, thereby significantly cutting their use. Why can the Government not put a tax on them? It is a simple thing, and they might even make some money out of it.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend about how serious a problem this is for the environment and waste. It is right that a plastic carrier bag tax would severely reduce the number of one-way plastic bags in circulation. However, our present view is that the case for a plastic carrier bag tax is not proven on broad environmental or litter grounds. Indeed, the jury is out on this as far as we are concerned. A recent extended impact assessment on the introduction of such a tax or levy in Scotland shows that there would be a broad environmental disbenefit should the levy be introduced in its current form, mainly due to factors such as increased transport emissions through the substitution of heavier bags—paper and thicker plastic bin bags—for the light one-way bags currently in use. I know that this answer will disappoint my noble friend, but there are no immediate plans to introduce a tax. However, we are monitoring closely the impact of the PlasTax scheme in Ireland.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, it is not the manufacture and proper use of plastic bags that is offensive, it is our appallingly casual attitude as a society to their being dropped all over the place as litter. Have the Government received any evidence from countries that have put a tax on these bags that it has had any impact on the incidence of plastic bags appearing in improper places as litter?

Lord Bach: My Lords, the Government have asked the Waste Resources Action Programme, known as WRAP, to investigate the feasibility of a national bag-for-life scheme to attempt to change consumer behaviour and reduce plastic bag usage. My noble friend's point about changing behaviour is at the heart of this issue.
	The experience in Ireland, where there has been a 15 per cent levy on disposable plastic carrier bags since March 2002, is favourable. The levy has raised €33 million in all, €13.5 million of which was collected last year. Its primary purpose is apparently litter control rather than plastic waste reduction, but it seems to have a large effect on the use of disposable plastic carrier bags, which has reduced, I am informed, by 93 per cent since the levy's introduction. There is much to think about there.

Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords, if a tax is not the answer to this serious problem, what other actions are the Government taking to reduce the quantity of plastic bags that end up as litter; for instance, by encouraging supermarkets to use biodegradable bags?
	With respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, Chair of the Refreshment Committee, I report that at the last meeting the committee agreed that the shop in the House of Lords should use paper bags for all small items, and so reduce the use of plastic bags in your Lordships' House.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am delighted to be reminded by my noble friend of the action that we in this House have taken.
	The House will not be surprised to hear that the Government are talking to supermarkets about this issue. The Government have recently introduced legislation in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 to improve powers for tackling all forms of litter, including plastic bag litter. Some of these measures came into force on 7 June. The remainder will need to be commenced in April 2006.
	One of the measures that came into force in June is the extension of the litter offence to include all land areas, not just land that is accessible to the public, so that it now covers private land and land covered by water. It is an offence to drop any item of litter in a lake, pond, watercourse, or the sea down to the low water mark. Fixed penalties can be used to punish those who commit such anti-social offences.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, the Minister rightly says that the issue is partly about changing consumer behaviour, and I am sure he is aware that the Liberal Democrats believe that a tax would do that. Does he agree, however, that this is also about changing retailers' behaviour? They use plastic bags and packaging of all sorts, not only to contain the goods, but as marketing tools and security measures. For example, if you buy a large item, they will simply tie a plastic bag to it as an indication that you have paid. What do the Government propose to do about the retail sector?

Lord Bach: My Lords, the noble Baroness, as always, asks a pertinent question. There is an issue with retailers over this matter. We are talking to supermarkets, as I mentioned, and we have discussed the question of tax or a bag for life. We have talked about the latter possibility in some detail. Many of the supermarkets support such a concept. However, in the case of those who run these extremely powerful retail organisations, there are conflicting interests in their minds as to what they should do. But there is no doubt at all that the problem my noble friend has raised in his Question is one that we have to answer soon, for all our sakes.

Lord Kilclooney: My Lords, arising from the earlier reply that the experience in the Republic of Ireland has proved that 93 per cent of plastic bags are no longer necessary, instead of imposing new taxes on the people of the United Kingdom, why do the Government not go ahead and ban 100 per cent of plastic bags, so that we can now use alternatives, as they are now doing in the Republic?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am interested to hear the noble Lord's view on the matter, and I will take it back to the department with me. I cannot promise, however, that it will shortly become law.

Bowman Communication System

Lord Astor of Hever: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether British Army units which are part of the NATO deployment to be sent to Afghanistan are to be equipped with the Bowman communication system as a main or additional means of communication.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, full selection for the deployment to Afghanistan in 2006 will not be finalised until late autumn. We therefore cannot at present identify either the units or communications equipment that will be deployed.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that reply. If Bowman is taken to Afghanistan, the troops using it must be confident that it works properly. Can the noble Baroness give an assurance that it will be fully tested in mountain conditions before being used there? Will it inter-operate with other NATO troops in Afghanistan?

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, if it goes to Afghanistan, it will operate with other NATO troops and, of course, with Clansman, the other system that our Armed Forces use at present. There have been trials to ensure that.
	I have been told in my briefing that it is not just a radio, but a command, control and communications system. Calling it a radio would be like calling Chelsea football team a few lads who have a kick about on a Saturday afternoon. It has been tested in hot and dry climates in the Californian desert and in Oman. It has also had trials on terrain.

Lord Garden: My Lords, I am slightly surprised at the noble Baroness's answer. We already know that the headquarters of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps will be deployed. We are the framework nation for that headquarters, and we have a special responsibility for communications as a result. Does that not mean that we should already be identifying units that we will have to work with in that headquarters? We should be trialling and testing with them.
	We know that the introduction to service for the UK forces was quite testing, and we need to do it with the other forces that we shall be working with in Afghanistan. Surely, we need to start that now.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, tests are being carried out all the time. He will also know that the Bowman system—the radio system and the data communications and digital mapping systems—is being rolled out incrementally, unit by unit, division by division. Until we have settled on exactly which units will be in Afghanistan in 2006 and their precise nature, we have to leave the matter of exact equipment open.
	We know that the personal role radio has been an enormous success in Iraq and that it has increased our communications capability there very much. We have already operated with it, and we shall obviously look at that. When we decide which units and which communications equipment are going to Afghanistan, we shall make those decisions.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, in view of what the Minister has just said, can she confirm information that I have that a British Army unit that was recently sent to Iraq and was equipped with Bowman in the UK had that equipment withdrawn because of problems and that the unit has gone to Iraq with the obsolete Clansman? If the Minister does not know the answer to that, will she write to me?

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I am happy to write to the noble Lord with a detailed answer to his question. There are opportunities in Iraq at present for Bowman to be used with Clansman which, as the noble Lord knows, is the other system used by the forces. We do not deny that Bowman has had problems. It is an enormous communications system. We have looked at problems in the past few years, and we learn as each problem is corrected. The Bowman radio system is an enormous success, and we want the systems that will go into the armoured vehicles to be as successful.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I remind the House of my peripheral interest. Can Bowman work in secure mode with the Clansman system?

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, as I understand it, Bowman can work in an insecure mode with Clansman. If I am wrong about that, I shall write to the noble Earl. However, there is a gismo—noble Lords will note my technical expertise; I come from a generation that finds it difficult to pre-programme the video recorder—that can be attached and which, I believe, can make it secure, but I understand that both modes are available.

NATO: Nuclear Forces in Europe

Lord Garden: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What level of nuclear forces NATO must maintain in Europe to provide an essential political and military link between European and North American members of the alliance.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, all NATO's forces are maintained at a minimum level necessary. At any given time, that level is dependent on the current and foreseeable security environment. NATO's nuclear forces stationed in Europe have been reduced by more than 90 per cent since the end of the cold war.

Lord Garden: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her somewhat opaque Answer, although it contrasts with her own Government's very open and transparent declaration of UK nuclear forces, which is what the reference was about. A recent report by a Washington institute, the US National Resources Defense Council, states that there are 480 nuclear bombs currently fielded by NATO in Europe—the same number as in 1994, no reductions—100 of which are based at RAF Lakenheath. Is it not time for us to be more open and to consider reducing those numbers?

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, the noble Lord is right. The Government seek to be as open as possible about the UK's nuclear forces. However, he will also understand that some areas properly remain secret. The Government believe that, given its need to maintain security, NATO also is as open as it can be. Security is the principal reason for the long-standing, neither confirmed nor denied, policy with NATO. It is adhered to by NATO, the US and the UK, applying to location and numbers of nuclear weapons deployed. At present, we do not foresee a moment at which we would change that.

Water Supply

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether, given reduced annual rainfall, there are adequate measures in place to deal with the resulting water shortages.

Lord Bach: My Lords, water companies have drought plans to deal with periods when rainfall is below average. Each company's drought plan sets out how it will continue to meet its duties to supply adequate quantities of wholesome water during drought periods. The plans contain a series of triggers that cause the companies to initiate a range of actions. The measures activated depend on the severity of the drought and include publicity campaigns and hosepipe bans.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. He has told us what the duties of the water companies are. However, I would respectfully suggest to him that the Government have a number of duties. I am sure that the Minister is aware that your Lordships' House chose to introduce several amendments to the Water Act, including a duty on the Environment Agency to secure efficient use of water resources. None of the duties under the Water Act has yet been implemented, including the suggestion that there should be a water saving trust to promote the efficient use of water. In the light of the fact that we are now experiencing the second driest period in 100 years and that, given climate change, variability in the weather is likely to continue, what progress has the Minister's department made in implementing all those duties?

Lord Bach: My Lords, for the eight months from November last year, rainfall totals across England and Wales are indeed below average. The developing drought is most intense in southern and Thames regions, which have had less than two-thirds of average rainfall. Midlands, Anglian, south-west regions, and Wales have had about three-quarters of average rainfall. Northern England has been wetter, with an average of 80 to 90 per cent of rainfall since last November.
	The noble Baroness asked about the Government's role. The Government have no direct role until a water company applies to the Secretary of State for a drought order. We expect the company to meet officials to discuss the worsening situation prior to any application for a drought order being made.
	The noble Baroness referred, appropriately, to the Water Act 2003. She will know that drought plans were made on a non-statutory basis as a consequence of the water summit that this Government held in 1997 shortly after coming to power. The Water Act followed from that and, later this year, those drought plans are to be made statutory and will be open to public consultation.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, do not the Government have a major responsibility in this field in that they are demanding that local authorities in south-east England build hundreds of thousands more houses, all of which will need a water supply, when the infrastructure for that water supply in not in place in the south east?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am not surprised that the noble Countess makes that point, but we need to draw a distinction between short-term issues of drought and those of longer-term demand. Companies reconcile normal demand for water with supply and that is dealt with by water companies in their water resources plans. Those plans have included estimates of housing growth and will continue to be revised as the number and location of new-build housing becomes clearer.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the Minister said that the Government had no direct responsibility for water but they do have a responsibility for the planning of housing. The other day I asked why they are building so many more houses in the south-east, where there is already known to be a water shortage and a hosepipe ban is in place. Is that not somewhat impractical?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Baroness—I often do but not on this occasion. As I said in reply to the noble Countess a few seconds ago, it is important to draw a distinction between the short-term issue of drought and that of longer-term demand. Where there is a need for more water over a period of years, it is possible to find new sources. We will not build the houses until the infrastructure is in place.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, the regulatory and enforcement responsibilities of the water undertakings are set out in the regulations of 2000, but many of them are simply refusing to carry out their responsibilities as enshrined in the law. Would it not be wise to transfer some of those responsibilities to local authorities so that enforcement would take place under building regulations?

Lord Bach: My Lords, my noble friend talks about giving more power to local authorities in this instance, and I shall take that matter back with me. However, with regard to the building regulations, the Government are considering how to deliver improved water efficiency in new housing following the recommendations of the Sustainable Buildings Task Group. Those recommendations include revision of Part G of the building regulations to include water efficiency requirements, use of planning conditions to deliver improved water efficiency within buildings and, last but not least, the production of a code for sustainable building to highlight and disseminate best practice in efficiency. No doubt local authorities will play a leading role in all that.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, in this country dry seasons have followed wet seasons since time immemorial. The solution proposed in biblical times was to store in the good times in order to have resources when times were bad. Can the Minister tell the House what major reservoir construction has taken place over the past decade? Perhaps more significantly, do the Government have plans to change the planning and regulatory regimes for the future to ensure that more strategic water storage is provided so that this kind of situation is less of a concern?

Lord Bach: My Lords, during drought conditions companies are expected to put measures in place to require customers to reduce their demand for non-essential use. The Government's aim is to ensure that the environment receives adequate protection at times of water stress and to protect customers from the high bills that would result from companies developing systems that could cope with unconstrained demand under any circumstances. In other words, it would be foolish to make the taxpayer pay huge amounts of money for reservoirs that would be needed only at times of heavy drought. We have to have a balance here, of course, between what is necessary for the weather and what is necessary so far as the taxpayer is concerned. Is it the Conservative Party's policy that we should build many new reservoirs?

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I have two questions for the Minister. First, wastage of water and leakage of water have been big issues. In some company areas as much as 25 per cent of the water collected has been lost. What progress has been made on that front by the water companies? Secondly, compensatory flow in rivers during times of drought is a big issue. It could lead to rivers running dry as happens in southern Europe. What is the Environment Agency doing to ensure that compensatory rules are adhered to?

Lord Bach: My Lords, with regard to the noble Lord's question about leakages, most companies are meeting the leakage targets that have been set by the regulator, Ofwat. That means that they are at what is called the economic level of leakage, which is, apparently, the level of leakage at which it would cost more to make further reductions in leakage than to produce the water from another source. Thames Water has had continuing problems with leakage. Indeed, 2003–04 was the first year of new targets for the three areas of Thames Water's operation. This year leakage targets were met in areas outside London, but leakages in south London are also falling. Control of leakages in the north London area remains the main challenge, mainly due to ageing infrastructure. Six companies failed to meet their leakage targets. Enforcement measures can, of course, be taken if that continues.

Lord Walpole: My Lords, is the Minister aware that at the end of my drive I have a borehole that is owned by the Anglian Water Authority and the University of East Anglia? It is absolutely obvious that even when there is a lot of rain the aquifers are not filling up. That is the big problem—if they do not fill up in wet years, when will they fill up?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I do not know when they will fill up if they will not fill up in wet years. It seems to me that wet years are the years in which they will fill up. I am sorry—

Lord Walpole: My Lords, they do not; that is the trouble.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am not sure that that question is fairly directed to me. It sounds to me as though the noble Lord should look elsewhere to find an answer regarding his borehole.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, as I understand it, in the southern region as the water table falls the quality of the water also falls and the lead content in the water rises. Are the Government aware of that? Who has responsibility for ensuring that the quality of the water is maintained? Is it the local southern water board or is it the Government?

Lord Bach: My Lords, at the risk of replying incorrectly to the noble Lord, my opinion is that the Environment Agency would have a prime role in looking at the quality of the water that is produced.

Lord Inglewood: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is not merely shortage of water that is a problem? In the city of Carlisle near where I live and where I was born, there was recently a very serious flood. A few days ago the Government announced that they would give £1.5 million, I believe, to assist the cost of the clear up. That amount is considered on all sides to be pretty niggardly. Will the Government review that and, if not, why not?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I do not believe that that amount is in the slightest way niggardly and I am surprised to hear the noble Lord say so. However, I shall take the issue back to the department and make sure that the noble Lord receives a letter. But instead of criticising, the noble Lord should have congratulated us on taking action so soon.

Viscount Tenby: My Lords, perhaps I may revert to the earlier question put to the Minister by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, and tease out from him a little more on the subject. There is a feeling both within and outside the industry that economies in the workforce in order to maximise profits have had an adverse effect on the water pipe repair programme. Is the Minister able to confirm this? If so, will the Government remind the water companies of their responsibilities in these matters?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I cannot confirm the question asked by the noble Lord, but his point in relation to the workforce is important and significant. If he will allow me, I shall take it away and write to him.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to tell the House what progress has been made on the idea of a national water grid? I know that there are difficulties, but obviously the idea could be reconsidered as an answer to our present problems.

Lord Bach: My Lords, that idea is well worth looking at. I shall make sure that the Government do so.

Finance Bill

Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and ordered to be printed.
	Business of the House: Debates this Day

Lord Rooker: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Lord President of the Council, I beg to move the first Motion standing in her name of the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Earl of Sandwich and the Baroness Finlay of Llandaff set down for today shall each be limited to two and a half hours.—(Lord Rooker.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business of the House: Grand Committee Motions

Lord Rooker: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Amos, I beg to move the second Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That leave be given for the three Motions set down for today referring instruments to a Grand Committee to be moved en bloc.—(Lord Rooker.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Community Legal Service (Scope) Regulations 2005

Civil Procedure (Modification of Crown Proceedings Act 1947) Order 2005

Revised Funding Code Prepared by the Legal Services Commission

Lord Rooker: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Amos, I beg to move the next three Motions standing in her name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft regulations and order, and the revised code be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Budget (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Traffic Management (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Colleges of Education (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft orders laid before the House on 9, 27, 26 and 28 June be approved. These matters were discussed in Grand Committee on Monday last.

Moved, That the draft orders be agreed to.—(Lord Rooker.)
	On Question, Motion agreed to.

Slavery

The Earl of Sandwich: rose to call attention to the progress made towards the eradication of contemporary forms of slavery; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I am again grateful to my noble friends and to other speakers for supporting this debate. It is over five years since we last debated slavery in its contemporary forms in January 2000. Lord Longford remembered talking to Lord Kitchener about it, while Lord Wilberforce spoke with his usual calm authority. Both noble Lords will be missed. I had returned from Nepal, enthusiastic about new legislation to prevent bonded labour. Her Majesty's Government, in the form of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, pleaded that much was being done in many countries, as I am sure we shall hear from her again today.
	I declare an interest as a council member of Anti-Slavery International, whose help I warmly acknowledge. I also intend to draw on some experience with Christian Aid in south India.
	Since our last debate, awareness of slavery has increased. Trafficking of women and children has become an international scandal. There has been more NGO and United Nations activity, and more interest in the United States, but unfortunately not enough action has been taken by most of the governments concerned. Thanks to the Nepali campaigners, the government of Nepal have since ratified the ILO conventions and have released thousands of kamaiya labourers. However, the government have since been almost impotent because of Maoist terrorism.
	As we try to make poverty history through aid, debt relief and trade, there is something obscene about our failure to eradicate the worst forms of labour exploitation which still affect over 12 million people around the world today. According to the ILO's latest report, more children are entering the mining and quarrying sector every day. In the Philippines, nearly 18,000 children, some as young as five, work in mines and quarries. In Nepal, it has been estimated that around 32,000 children are working in stone quarries. Some 8.4 million children are in the "unconditional" worst forms of child labour. ILO Convention 182 defines these as slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, and other illicit activities.
	These practices affect children all over the world. Forced recruitment of children for armed conflict, for example, takes place in Burma, Colombia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and five African countries. My noble friends Lady Cox and Lord Alton will be speaking about Africa.
	My noble friend Lord Hilton of Eggardon will be speaking about trafficking. The ILO estimates that some 2.5 million people have been trafficked into forced labour, and 32 per cent of those are exclusively used for labour exploitation: domestic work, agricultural work, catering, packing and processing. Many governments have failed to protect migrant workers from forced labour and exploitation. They have restricted access to legal migration channels, despite a high demand for skilled and unskilled migrant workers, thereby contributing to the profitability of trafficking.
	The ILO stresses that:
	"In all countries and regions migrant workers, particularly irregular migrants, are at particular risk of coercive recruitment and employment practices".
	I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Brett, will say more about this.
	Debt bondage is another pernicious form of forced labour. It associates dependency with caste. Almost all bonded labourers in India, Nepal and Pakistan are from the lowest castes, tribes and minorities and are landless and economically dependent. Employers exploit them by paying poor wages, or demanding unpaid labour, forcing workers to borrow. They work longer hours for less pay, and become even more indebted.
	Research among bonded mineworkers in Rajasthan five years ago revealed that one third were women, and that one in four of those women were widows of workers who had died of silicosis and TB. These women were still incurring debt from costs such as medicines and funerals. Another study by Human Rights Watch found that bonded child workers in the Indian silk industry work 10 to 14 hours a day, at least six days a week, and many had respiratory diseases and skin infections.
	It is 30 years since the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was passed, but many local officials turn a blind eye to it, and the Indian Government have only taken action in a fraction of cases. To me, the concept of good governance, whether in Africa or Asia, means that we must look at these problems on a world scale, not leave them to those individual states. India, for example, has a quarter of the world's poorest people. We must encourage any efforts the Indian Government make to combat descent-based discrimination and atrocities against the Dalits, or the scheduled castes. As a major aid donor, trade partner and friend of India, we must be prepared to speak out when the Indian Government are not making these efforts.
	India's constitution officially abolished the low status of the Dalits, then known as untouchables, in 1950. However, Dalits suffer discrimination everywhere. They are often excluded from public services altogether. In some places, they are still not even allowed to walk on the road.
	One definition of extreme poverty in India is when someone as poor as a Dalit labourer has to eat undigested grain saved from buffalo dung. The Dalits have to do the worst cleaning jobs in latrines for a pittance, and they are the ones who remove corpses during emergencies like the tsunami.
	The most common causes of atrocities against them relate to land, water and employment. Incidents are occurring more frequently because Dalits are asserting their rights to those resources. Landowners and the panchayat members used to having their way with Dalits have, in turn, become more aggressive.
	At the same time, there is clear evidence of police collusion in caste-based atrocities. Out of 100 cases surveyed in Andhra Pradesh, only 18 complaints were correctly filed under the Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989 and 29 were never even registered, let alone investigated by the police. False counter-charges by members of higher castes are, however, often admitted.
	Even when a case comes to the local courts, the victim is extremely unlikely to win. One human rights report in Andhra Pradesh recorded an average conviction rate of 4.7 per cent. Out of 78 major cases which went to the High Court, mainly of rape, murder, physical attack or abuse, two-thirds went against Dalits.
	Another group which suffers discrimination is the manual scavengers. The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993 states:
	"no persons shall engage in or employ . . . any other person for manually carrying human excreta".
	It is an offence theoretically punishable with imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of two thousand rupees. Two-thirds of the scavengers are women, occasionally assisted by young children who may collect a piece of bread in compensation.
	Child prostitution is another aspect of discrimination against Dalits in the South. The tradition of the jogins is that a young girl is dedicated to the goddess as a means of avoiding natural disasters, sickness in the family or sometimes the lack of a male heir. Her parents take a vow even when she is an infant. The child is declared a jogin and becomes a property of the temple until she comes of age. Aged 11 or 12 she is then "married" to the goddess at a special initiation ceremony where she is garlanded and dressed up as a deity. At this point, she in practice falls into the hands of a patron of the temple, and becomes his mistress for an indefinite period. She has no say in the decision and sometimes her parents earn money from her.
	Surprisingly, there is no national law against that system, although it breaks almost every international human rights convention. Vulnerable girls are theoretically given protection by the Juvenile Justice Act of 1986. In Andhra Pradesh, there is a penalty of three years' imprisonment under the Devadasis (Prohibition of Dedication) Act 1988. But there are few prosecutions and little political will to enforce the Act. Voluntary organisations supported by Christian Aid and Save the Children have been remarkably successful in campaigning on their behalf and helping them to become more aware of their rights under international law. But that must not just be left to NGOs; they are insufficient to make real changes.
	India's constitution established a judiciary which remains among the best in the world. But due process depends on the quality of service at every level and on a mature political structure which will set the priorities in favour of the poor and oppressed. As I said, that is not just an issue for organisations that the Government here can support. It is for the G8, as it is discussing those other major issues of poverty. It is up to the international community to support India in those activities. Until the police and legal system can ensure convictions, and as long as the poor and scheduled castes continue to be unprotected, it will be left to the non-government sector, the unions and the Dalits themselves to assert their human dignity.
	In 2007, we shall be celebrating the anti-slavery bicentenary. Preparations are already being made in charities, government departments and non-governmental organisations, including Anti-Slavery International. The anniversary is a time to commemorate the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and to work for the eradication of all contemporary forms of slavery. So it has a twin aim. The Wilberforce Institute in Hull, the National Maritime Museum here and the new gallery in Liverpool, to mention only three, deserve our support. We know from last October's excellent debate in another place that the Government will ensure that this bicentenary is properly commemorated.
	No one should forget Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade. In 1807, this Parliament finally abolished it here, although the campaign against slavery overseas continued. Historians such as Linda Colley say that our grassroots democracy was founded on the anti-slavery campaign because it inspired and informed millions of people who never knew that they had so much influence on their own government, and on parliamentary reform and much followed, as we all know.
	I am proud to belong to perhaps the oldest British charity of its kind, ASI, but there are many societies world-wide that have the same potential today to channel political ardour into productive information, advocacy and human rights work. For example, the Arab world is now experiencing a remarkable growth in civil society. Few people recognise that in Saudi Arabia, where there is a strong charitable tradition, among other organisations there is a charity helping trafficked Nigerian and other street children.
	Finally, I have specific questions for the Minister, of which I have given her advanced notice. What are the Government doing to ensure that core international standards that prohibit slavery, such as the UN supplementary convention and the UN protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking are universally ratified? The 1956 convention will have its 50th anniversary next year, but more than 70 states have still not ratified it. Will the UK work through the European Union and the United Nations to ensure higher priority for the eradication of slavery, for example, through the creation of a UN special representative to review contemporary forms of slavery or by supporting the ILO special action programme on forced labour? Will the UK sign the new UN convention on migrant workers?
	How do the Government engage with the government of India at a national level, through its country assistance plan, on issues of caste and social exclusion? What progress is DfID India making in its partnership with the UNDP and the Ministry of Home Affairs on increasing access to justice for the poor? What contact does it have with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on Dalit issues? Finally, will the Government undertake research to try to quantify the number of people who are trafficked into the UK for labour or sexual exploitation? My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Giddens: My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for initiating this debate on this very important subject. Having said that, I do not think that slavery exists in the modern world. I do not mean that there are not rampant forms of exploitation and oppression, which are found in all societies, including western countries. I want to make a conceptual point, but I hope it is not purely academic, because important policy implications flow from it.
	Slavery has existed throughout human history. In Aristotle's Politics, which is the first account of how to create an organised society or state, the relationship between master and slave is described as one of the three core pillars of any organised society. In all traditional cultures until the 18th or 19th century slavery was everywhere regarded as a natural human condition. There were many slave revolts, of course, but ethical and economic objections to slavery came very late.
	I was glad that the noble Earl mentioned the trans-Atlantic slave trade because that was one of the greatest stains on western civilisation, but it was also a major lever for transformation. The slave trade energised a movement for change and the abolition of slavery that eventually became a global movement.
	In my view, the term "slavery" should be restricted to what some people call "chattel slavery". That is what slavery always meant. It was an institutionalised and legal part of society; slaves were normally expensive to buy and usually yielded only low profits for their owners. In the deep South of America in the 19th Century, for example, the average cost of a slave was $40,000 in today's terms. Slaves also normally had a long-term relationship with their owners, because they were expensive property.
	Slavery in this sense—or something close to it—continues to exist in the modern world. We have only to think of the notorious case of Niger, which made slave ownership punishable in law as late as 2003. Of course, that law did not eliminate the practice completely. Similar instances exist in Chad, Mali, Mauritania and elsewhere. But when we turn to what people now call slavery, it means something different. We have to tease out these differences if we are to have adequate policies to confront the various forms of deprivation and exploitation that exist across the world today.
	For me, the debate about slavery has been shaped by one very important book: Kevin Bales's Disposable People. That book was indeed a brilliant intervention in the global debate about slavery. He rightly separates what the calls the "old slavery"—traditional slavery throughout history as I have described it—from the "new slavery". He estimates that there are 27 million new slaves in the world today.
	Bales is the head of an NGO, Free the Slaves. The work of Anti-Slavery International, which describes itself as the world's oldest international human rights organisation, has also been cited. In no sense do I mean to criticise the work of those agencies, which all do excellent work. However, I do want to argue about the nature of slavery itself. If we do not abandon the term, we should at least be cautious about using it. I want to suggest three reasons for caution and, if I may be forgiven for being academic, three policy conclusions which stem from those.
	First, if we continue to call the various things mentioned by the noble Earl in his opening speech "slavery", we risk suggesting that history is continuous—that slavery has always been with us and therefore always will be with us. In the same sense, one could argue that poverty has always been with us; but this is not true. The movement against the global slave trade had enormous, transformative impact on the world. It served to eliminate almost completely the form of slavery which had existed for so many centuries. What we have therefore is an historical break. The kinds of exploitation that exist in the world are mostly only remotely connected with what used to be quite rightly called slavery.
	Secondly, as Bales points out, both the nature and origins of the so-called new slavery are utterly different from the past. No-one owns the so-called new slaves, whereas ownership was always the principle of what slavery meant. Today, slaves cost next to nothing; Bales estimates an average of $100 to pay for the vast category of people included under the notion of slaves. As the title of his book suggests, they are disposable. That is very different from the past.
	Thirdly, and most importantly, if we use the term slavery to cover such a wide range of circumstances that in fact differ from one another, we do not necessarily pick up the differences between their causes and how we should respond to them. For example, bonded labour—which, as was mentioned, is a big problem across large parts of the world—has nothing really in common with the sexual exploitation of children, early or forced marriage, or many of the other categories included under that loose notion of slavery. We have to prise them apart if we are to have adequate policies to deal with them.
	I conclude by mentioning what three of these policy orientations might do. First, as an academic, I would say that a lot more research and precision is needed in the debate about global slavery. To say that there are 27 million slaves in the world is meaningless, given the diffuse and highly emotional nature of the term. I looked through a lot of literature before this debate, and there are wildly divergent figures bandied around. Tracing those figures to their origins, in most cases I could not find the evidential basis for them. We are told that millions of people are involved in human trafficking and so on, but it is very hard to find the evidential base for those claims.
	We need more research of the kind carried out in Niger by Timidria, a local NGO group. It interviewed 14,000 people and was able to give a good account of what slavery means and the kind of exploitation that exists on the ground. We need more of that kind of research.
	Secondly, we should separate out those cases where the issue is a lack of modernisation from those cases which are the result of the outcome of modernisation and globalisation, which are very different. For example, bonded labour has existed for centuries. It existed alongside, but was different from, traditional slavery. In this area we need education, a change of family structures and direct intervention from the local state.
	Compare that with human trafficking, which is largely, but not entirely, a creation of the globalised world in which we live and the rapid means of communication which exist within it. Here we need something quite different—strong international action and collaboration.
	Thirdly, and finally, as we have only seven minutes—oh! I am there—there has been much discussion about what could be done in the West by individuals to contest these forms of exploitation, whether or not you call them slavery. Some suggestions—such as looking at the nature of pension funds—make good sense, but a great deal of what now passes for slavery is organised through the state. Some states play a direct role in the persistency of these practices—for example, Burma and Sudan—and other states are complicit in them.
	After the Iraq war, many liberals and people on the Left suddenly have rediscovered sovereignty. But human rights must take precedence over sovereignty in the world. We therefore must be prepared to be interventionist and for states and international organisations to be much firmer than they have been hitherto in contesting these forms of oppression.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for introducing the debate. I was delighted to listen to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. Today is probably the right time to debate this issue. One aspect of the problem—poverty—could be solved if it is tackled by those discussing it at the G8 conference.
	The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, is right to say that forced labour is a significant component of all forms of contemporary slavery. This consists of compulsory work against an individual's will or conditions of labour under the threat of severe punishment or other awful consequences if they fail to abide by their abuser's rules. The figures cited by the noble Earl are very interesting. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, that, although they may not have a proper statistical base—it will require research to determine the correct figures—the generally accepted number of such people is approximately 12.3 million.
	Contemporary slavery can be divided into a number of forms. Bonded labour has been cited, which begins when impoverished individuals exchange their labour for a loan from a private contractor. This practice exists in many parts of the world. The scheme often goes sour when the person's debt is inflated out of a repayable proportion through excessive interest charges, fanned by the lender's greed.
	Bonded labour is estimated to affect about 80 per cent of the world's forced labour and therefore makes up a significant proportion of modern slavery. It may be said that globalisation sponsors a great deal of this forced labour. Certain multinationals enter into poorer countries and recruit locals into inadequate or forced labour with no regard to labour ethics. Of the world's 12.3 million forced labourers, 8.4 million are suspected to be children working in what are called the "unconditional" worst forms of child labour. As with forced labour and slavery, the most helpless seem to go the most unhelped. The terrible example of children as some of the greatest sufferers goes quite unimpeded. I am sure that all of us agree that we cannot allow this situation to continue.
	Human trafficking is more profitable than drug trafficking. It can be traced as one of the main channels through which exploited labourers pass. Approximately 2.5 million people have been trafficked into forced labour, and about one third of them are enrolled into forced or exploited labour such as domestic or factory work. Migrant workers are undervalued and so unprotected by many governments, and most are faced with restricted access to legal migration channels despite a demand for labour in destination countries.
	Just as we call for the recognition of minority communities as the most at risk of enslavement, we want the countries that are accountable for even a small proportion of this epidemic to rethink their position on it.
	The same resolve applies to the problem of forced labour imposed by the state. Although states are responsible for a much smaller percentage of forced labour cases than individuals, certain governments, such as that of Burma, are directly responsible for such practices. Governments are far more difficult to prosecute than guilty individuals, especially when there is little or no legislation against the act. In North Korea, forced labour is considered a part of the re-education process for those who are detained for drug addiction, theft and prostitution.
	Discrimination can be identified as one of the primary causes of much forced labour and slavery. In some countries, people of particular descent or ethnic groups are expected ritually to do polluting or unpaid work, examples of which were cited by the noble Earl.
	For any eradication of contemporary slavery to be possible, highly prioritised national and global action plans are needed. Before even that is possible, there needs to be a total acceptance of the situation of modern slavery. At the moment, many of the world's governments seem to have their eyes closed to the culpable practices that either exist in their own countries or are viewable in the world around them. The reality is that in the modern international society, everything concerns everyone.
	One can cite examples of countries where such practices are prevalent. We should be asking what the solutions are. First, national and international plans to fight slavery need to cover the structural make-up that produces those susceptible to it.
	Poverty is another highly influential factor in slavery. As we saw with debt bondage, the poor often enter into the unending cycle of slavery in a genuine attempt to earn a wage. When faced with a choice between extreme poverty and starvation or slave labour, even the latter appears more attractive.
	By removing the present obstacles, prioritising and abolishing slave labour will work as part of an integrated strategy to achieve existing development targets such as the millennium development goals. For this reason, I value a number of organisations which are doing some important work in this respect. I declare an interest as a member and trustee of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol. On a positive note, that museum is a unique example of where a good acceptance of the issue of slavery in modern society has been developed into a strong educational base for the abolition of slavery's causes. Young people and visitors to that charming museum are taught the importance of understanding the history of the transatlantic slavery trade within the context of the British Empire. The museum also works actively with Anti-Slavery International to promote engagement with national and local slavery, heritage and contemporary issues and solutions. Most importantly, the museum raises awareness of the terrible situation in a refreshing and successful way.
	Such organisations need sustained funding to help broadcast the main message of anti-slavery bodies and eventually to help end slavery. Why are the Government half-heartedly involved? Will the Minister speak to his colleague to see how we can assist one of our finest museums, which is being deprived of resources adequately to pursue this type of work?

The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, on 19 June 1816 William Wilberforce made a telling contribution to parliamentary debate.
	"They charge me with fanaticism,"
	he said.
	"If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large."
	I very much welcome this debate, especially if it contributes to bringing this House, the Government and all of us to the point of being more feelingly alive to the sufferings of our fellow creatures.
	I suppose a wise Bishop speaks with some humility on this issue. Christians have been involved in the slave trade and in slave ownership, although of course eventually they were at the forefront of the abolition movement. Churches as institutions benefited from the proceeds of the trade. Indeed, the initial Christian response to the horrors of transporting, trading and owning slaves was to ameliorate the abuses rather than to abolish the system.
	Today's debate offers us an opportunity to remind ourselves of the wide range of human rights abuses and violations that continue in our day, and about which we have already heard. In addition to traditional slavery and the slave trade, and bearing in mind the distinctions in terminology developed by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, these abuses include, as we have heard, the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography, the exploitation of child labour, the sexual mutilation of female children, the use of children in armed conflicts, debt bondage, the traffic in persons and the sale of human organs, among other things.
	I want to draw attention in particular to two forms of abuse that might particularly concern us. First, among the vast, continuing and widespread practices we might legitimately categorise as slavery are the 100 million or so children exploited for their labour, according to a recent estimate by the International Labour Organisation.
	We know that child labour is in great demand because it is cheap and because children are naturally more docile and easier to discipline than adults, and nearly always too frightened to complain. At the extreme fringe, children are kidnapped, held in remote camps and chained at night to prevent escape. Often they are put to work on road building and stone quarrying. These practices damage their health for life, deprive them of education and, worst of all, steals their childhood from them.
	As we have heard, NGOs have for some time proposed international timetables for the wiping out of the worst forms of child exploitation. They have recommended the immediate elimination of forced labour camps, and that children be excluded from the most hazardous forms of work, as defined by the World Health Organisation. I hope that today's debate will encourage the Government to monitor progress on these recommendations.
	Secondly, I want to draw attention to the plight of rural migrant workers, which came to prominence with the tragic deaths of the cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in 2004. It has been suggested that the living and working conditions of some 60,000 seasonal migrant workers in this country are tantamount to modern-day slavery, and need to be challenged by those with a concern for equality and human rights.
	In spite of the Gangmasters Licensing Act, migrant workers continue to face opposition from settled communities, who are wary of their numbers and fearful of the assumed economic and social pressures they place on towns and villages.
	Your Lordships will be interested to know that the Churches Rural Group, a co-ordinating group of Churches Together in England, works with these people to provide advice, information and legal assistance. It also encourages Churches and other bodies to be intermediaries in the disputes between misunderstood migrant workers and local residents.
	There are countless other abuses it would be possible to highlight, and to which, I have no doubt, others will draw attention. This debate draws our attention to the clear truth that slavery is indeed unfinished business, and that much more is needed to be done, not least in the G8, if we are to eliminate contemporary forms of exploitation. It is vital that we do this, because today's debate touches on our most fundamental understandings of what makes for human dignity and value.
	To that end, as we have heard, the Churches and Church-related groups, societies and organisations are uniting under the banner "Act to End Slavery", to highlight the relevance of the bicentenary of the 1807 abolition by the Slave Trade Act to today's world. I very much hope that this debate will make an effective contribution to that process.

Baroness Cox: My Lords, I too congratulate very warmly my noble friend on initiating this debate and on his tireless endeavours on humanitarian and human rights issues.
	I focus on Sudan and Burma. I believe that pictures sometimes speak louder than words. I therefore begin with two word pictures to illustrate the reality of contemporary slavery.
	First, I invite you to sit with me under a tree in southern Sudan as I talk to little Deng, aged about 10. He has just been brought home from the north of Sudan by Arab traders who bring their cattle south in the dry season. They are friends of the African Dinka people and risk a great deal to try to find, buy back and bring back men, women and children who have been abducted and taken into slavery. Today they have brought back several hundred slaves, including little Deng. He is traumatised, for he has just discovered that in the raid in which he was captured, two years previously, both his parents were killed. So he has just learned that he is an orphan. However, towards the end of our talk, I get a wistful little smile from Deng, who says, "At least I am home again now. I am called by my own name, Deng"—the Dinka word for rain, which is precious. So it means someone to be cherished. He continues, "At least I am no longer called Abid", the Arabic for "slave".
	Now to a different scene. Sitting on the floor of a wooden house in a refugee camp in the borderlands of Thailand and Burma, I am talking to a young orphan Karen girl in our home for children who have had to flee for their lives from the atrocities perpetrated by Burma's brutal military regime—the so-called State Peace and Development Council. We sometimes invite our children to draw memories of what happened to their families in Burma. This child shows me a vivid painting of her pregnant aunt and her two elderly grandparents being forced to carry heavy loads for SPDC soldiers who are beating her grandparents as they struggle under the 60- pound loads of rice or ammunition that they are forced to carry from dawn to dusk. I could multiply so many stories of the terrible reality of contemporary slavery.
	In more general terms, in Sudan, abduction and enslavement on a huge scale has been one of the weapons used by the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime since it took power in 1989. During the 1990s, NIF troops, accompanied by Mujahedeen Jihad fighters and the Murahaleen tribesmen, undertook massive offensives against civilians. On many occasions I was in Bahr-el-Ghazal when the attacks were taking place around me. I saw the evidence of the massacre of countless civilians and the grief of families whose loved ones had been abducted into slavery.
	I was also able to interview many, such as little Deng, who had been rescued from slavery and obtained compelling evidence of their ordeals, which proved beyond doubt the appropriateness of the use of the term "slavery today". Therefore, with great respect, I must disagree with the point of view put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, in his academic analysis.
	Anti-Slavery International has compiled a formidable array of evidence of continuing slavery in Sudan, the ineffectiveness of procedures to rescue and return those who have been abducted and the failure to prosecute those responsible. Moreover, the Rift Valley Institute individually has identified and interviewed more than 12,000 people violently abducted from southern Sudan between 1983 and 2002. Its research also estimates that over 11,000 of those abducted have still not even been accounted for. Moreover, the Commission for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC) has helped to rescue and reunite with their families 2,628 abductees between 1999 and 2004; but leaving at least 10,000 still waiting to be returned to their homes.
	Anti-Slavery International is not aware that any prosecutions have been brought to date. Will Her Majesty's Government urge the National Islamic Front regime to enable CEAWC to recommence and complete all necessary work to trace and rescue all who have been abducted and enable all who wish to return home to do so; to grant the special rapporteur and other personnel unrestricted access to all relevant areas; and to identify abductions and slavery as serious human rights violations to be addressed in the new constitution for Sudan?
	I turn very briefly to Burma where another brutal military junta took power by military force, and which oppresses all who oppose it. Its policies towards ethnic national groups such as the Karen, Karenni, Shan and Chin peoples can well be termed genocidal. Among the systematic violations of human rights are well-documented policies of forced labour and forcible recruitment of children into the army.
	Civilians are rounded up and forced to work as porters for SPCD soldiers and/or to walk ahead of them as human minesweepers. More than 1 million people have had to flee their villages, living and dying as internee displaced peoples in the jungle. Burma also has the highest number of child soldiers in the world—70,000, according to a Human Rights Watch report which has the poignant title, "My Gun was as Tall as Me".
	I have also taught young boys who have escaped from the SPDC army, where they were forced to serve as conscripts. One told me that one reason why he had escaped was that he could not bear to have to obey orders to beat old people who were struggling as forced porters to carry 30 kg loads of rice or ammunition from dawn until dusk with no food or water.
	What representations are Her Majesty's Government making to the SPDC to end those policies of forced labour and the forced conscription of children into the Burmese army? Will the Government consider initiating proceedings against Burma for crimes against humanity.
	As has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and by the right reverend Prelate, in 2007 there will be commemorations—and I suspect celebrations—of the anniversary of William Wilberforce's endeavours to end slavery and the slave trade. As the debate indicates, however, that is mission not accomplished.
	I urge Her Majesty's Government to adopt a much more robust policy with Sudan, Burma and other nations where slavery persists to do whatever is necessary to bring an end to slavery. It is a cause for shame that slavery in diverse forms continues in our world today. International protest brought down apartheid. Why are we so silent about slavery? It is at least as great an evil. I hope passionately that we will hear robust proposals from the Minister that extend the commitment to "Make Poverty History", to "Make Slavery History".
	I hope and pray that our generation will see an end to slavery. It is a blot on the page of the history of our time, for which we continue to carry responsibility until it is eradicated.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly in the debate, and I am grateful to the noble Earl for initiating it.
	As has already been said, youngsters are brought up to revere William Wilberforce and to think of Abraham Lincoln as the greatest hero of that century. I thought that slavery belonged to the past, but the more I listen to the various debates in this House, the more I realise the tremendous problems that we face.
	In the past few months this House has debated the subject of human trafficking. People who are already victims of desperate poverty are sold to be transported for the most terrible purposes. Thousands reach the shores of the United Kingdom. They are people who have no control over their own lives or destinies. All they have is a life of hardship and cruelty.
	It is difficult for us who were born free, with a say in our own lives and future, to even imagine what it must be like to be a slave. Someone may have potential but no opportunity. There is no hope of realising dreams. I do not know whether it is because I am Welsh, but we sang a lot. We sang the old spiritual, "When I get to heaven, I too will have shoes". There was no chance of shoes in this life—we had to look to the future because this life promised nothing.
	Noble Lords have contributed their own experiences, which have been fascinating to listen to. My concern, as I have mentioned previously in this House, is for the fate of young children from Africa who are transported here to the United Kingdom. A month or so ago, we received the Metropolitan Police report of 300 missing children, African boys aged between four and seven from two London boroughs alone—Hackney and Newham. In one three-month period in 2001, 300 boys went missing from school registers.
	That spot check is itself a cause of deep concern—two boroughs, three months, boys between four and seven. Is that more widespread? Are we talking of a hundred children a month? Are we talking only of London or of certain boroughs? Are we talking of the rest of the UK? I plead with the Government: please get to the bottom of this. Bring us a thorough-going report, because we must know the extent and are terribly alarmed by what we hear. Our alarm is even greater when the torso of a youngster then named Adam is fished out of the Thames and children are victims of witchcraft. If those are isolated incidences we are very worried; if they are but the tip of the iceberg, we could be facing the most terrible crime ever against children in the United Kingdom.
	Both the Evening Standard and the "Today" programme have focused on this question. We are told that in some major African cities, children are sold for £10 each and then smuggled into the United Kingdom. What happens to them here? What harm becomes them? Are they involved in witchcraft? We need to know.
	Finally, we ourselves must have the highest standards in our dealings with children and young people. Our hands must be clean. I notice that on Monday, the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence recommended that no youngster under 18 be recruited into the Armed Forces. I think that the Government must accept that, because we cannot have 15 and 16 year-olds recruited into the Armed Forces. I understand that we are in the noble company of Burma and North Korea. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child must be obeyed not only in the letter but also in spirit.
	I plead with the Government to tackle that and to produce a report saying, "Right, these arguments have carried the day. We will first look at the problem of those missing children to see how widespread it is. Secondly, we will no longer allow youngsters under 18, boy soldiers, to be recruited into our Armed Forces. No cause has ever been more deserving of our greatest energy and commitment than the ending of abuse of children and young people. Slavery today is real. It destroys hope and is a total stain on our world.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, I agree with the right reverend Prelate that the sexual abuse of children and the trafficking of people, whether for sexual or labour exploitation, are current modern forms of slavery. The issue of abuse of children has recently been highlighted by the Victoria Climbié case and that of the torso in the Thames.
	Those are the most spectacular known cases, but the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, has raised the issue of disappearances of children not just from school but totally. To confirm that, in 2004, 32 out of 33 London boroughs expressed concern about children in their care who may have suffered from trafficking from overseas.
	Can social services cope with this rather new kind of acute problem? Do they need better co-ordination? Could voluntary organisations be more helpful, especially over fostering and adoption? I once again ask the Government to examine with care whether the pay, expenses and training of foster carers are adequate for their heavy responsibilities. Once again, I express surprise that there are not even a few safe houses where children thought to have been trafficked can be cared for while they are assessed and plans are made for their future. This surely calls for leadership by Ministers to ensure that all departments co-operate to the full.
	As regards adults trafficked into this country against their will or by deception, the Government deserve our congratulations for providing the legislation that was needed and for obtaining some spectacular convictions. Co-operation between immigration services, Customs and Excise and police has improved, and it is essential for preventing and countering the sophisticated gangs that specialise in trafficking and prostitution. Ministers should lead the drive for full inter-agency co-operation. For instance, have they noted the control of prostitution in London, often using trafficked women, by Albanians?
	What happens after a trafficked person has escaped or been freed is less satisfactory. At present, the Poppy Project accommodation and support service in London is the only one catering for victims of trafficking. Such people often speak little or no English and suffer from the traumas they have experienced. The Poppy Project, which I have visited, has places for only 25 women. The admission criteria are narrow and strict. Worse still, Home Office funding expired in March and has been extended only to September. How can so valuable a service be properly run on such a hand-to-mouth basis? There is surely a need for one or more properly funded specialised agencies to provide needed accommodation, medical and psychological help and legal guidance, together with language and training opportunities?
	Immediate deportation must be avoided. If that happens, everyone loses. The victim may be murdered, or retrafficked to this or another country. Our police also lose the chance to gain valuable information for preventing and prosecuting traffickers. A reflection period—call it by any other name if you prefer—is essential for the reasons just given. It is also necessary to allow the victim to decide calmly whether to try to stay here or to seek to return to his or her home country. The EU directive on short-term permits, which came into force at the end of April, is directly relevant. Only this country, Ireland and Denmark have so far not ratified it. I urge the Government to delay no longer.
	May I also gently but firmly ask the Home Office not always to turn down applications from clients of the Poppy Project for refugee status or humanitarian protection? In fact, six out of 11 such decisions have been reversed on appeal.
	I conclude by mentioning China and North Korea, where trafficking and forced labour are serious issues. In China in early 2004, some 260,000 people were detained in camps for up to three years for re-education through labour. It is an administrative system without judicial process. I ask the Government to raise it at all human rights dialogues and in the context of the Beijing Olympic Games.
	Following the famines of the 1990s in North Korea, many people fled across the border into China. Some of them were, and are, refugees from political and religious persecution but others are economic migrants, mostly women seeking work in China to help their families survive at home. Traffickers, however, seize on the women and sell them, either as brides in forced marriages or to work in brothels. Those who are in China illegally, whatever their status, are liable to deportation to North Korea, where they may face execution because leaving without permission is a crime in itself. In his 2005 report, the UN special rapporteur for human rights concluded that all Koreans in China are de facto refugees because they have a genuine fear of what will happen if they are expelled.
	I ask Her Majesty's Government to raise these issues with both governments and, in particular, to press China to allow the UNHCR full access into that country.

Lord Joffe: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Sandwich on securing a debate on this most disturbing issue.
	I understand the distinction made by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, about the use of the word "slavery". However, for the purposes of this debate, we can use the label of slavery to apply to different types of injustice with common characteristics which have specific names, including bonded labour, early and forced marriages, forced labour, slavery by descent, trafficking and the worst forms of child labour.
	A characteristic common to all these forms of slavery is that those in extreme poverty are more likely to be subject to forced labour practices, and those subjected to contemporary forms of slavery are unlikely to break out of a cycle of poverty as coerced labour. For example, research in Brazil shows that up to 40 per cent of workers freed from slave labour in the past eight years have been freed more than once.
	From this, it is clear that development policy and the creation of viable economies are essential components in the fight to eradicate slavery. Land reform, fairer leasing arrangements, rural development programmes and micro-credit schemes would all help to reduce the incidence of debt bondage and serfdom which affect millions of people across the world. Access to basic education, the provision of stable employment and the enforcement of minimum wages are also key to ensuring that people do not become trapped in slavery-like practices.
	Thanks to the brilliant leadership of Bob Geldof, Bono and Richard Curtis, the Live 8 campaign has galvanised society throughout the world to demand that the eradication of poverty should be high on the world agenda. The splendid leadership of the Prime Minister, and the outstanding achievements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, backed by all the political parties and society as a whole, have created a sense of optimism that at last a real international start has been made in addressing the obscenity of poverty.
	It is naturally only the beginning, but some of the foundations, such as the cancellation of debt and increased overseas aid, have already been agreed. Even more important, however, will be fair trade and the removal of subsidies in the developed world, and good governance in the developing world.
	There is much that can be done in the battle against particular forms of slavery, but the key driver will be making poverty history because poverty is the greatest enslaver of the most people. When poverty becomes history, slavery will become history as well.
	I thank Anti-Slavery International and the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull for their briefing papers. I should also like to ask the Minister one question. What are the UK Government doing to ensure that poverty reduction strategies and programmes in the developing world include components that focus on removing people from slavery and, in particular, from forced labour conditions?

Baroness Howells of St Davids: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for initiating this debate. While recognising the title—eradicating contemporary slavery—I felt that it was important to call your Lordships' attention to the legacy on the descendants of enslaved Africans, which I hope will be taken into consideration by Ministers.
	It is now common knowledge how valuable the enslaved African was to the plantation owners. However, not much is known about the cost to those who are the descendants 150 plus years later. Not being an academic I speak as a descendant of the enslaved African.
	Transportation from tropical Africa to the Caribbean took its toll and left its legacy in many ways. How the slaves were sold was very much a process of genetic selection. The males had to be strong and able to produce profit for the enterprise. There was no consideration of tribal identity and the enslaved were brutally separated from their families and their offspring. Today, family breakdown can be traced to the earlier brutality of those who trafficked in human beings.
	The legacy of transportation also left behind many health issues which continue today. More hypertension, more schizophrenia and the crippling disease of sickle cell anaemia have all been classed as a direct legacy of slavery and the sudden shift from one country to another. Most of those claims are merely anecdotes but writers and historians have been trying to bring to the attention of the public the role of slavery in those diseases.
	Besides family breakdown, a whole dependency culture was instilled by the slave owners which still exists today—taking charge of the islands in the Caribbean has been an uphill struggle for today's citizens. They are still dependent on the colonisers to enter into trade—sugar, bananas, and so on. The story goes on. Dependency, lack of faith in the ability to do the task in hand, always looking for approval from the white population—the slave mentality was carefully crafted by the slave owners and it is still alive today.
	The prison of poverty is a legacy difficult to shake off. While the Caucasian speaks in billions, the black man speaks in hundreds because he was enslaved. He was robbed of his manhood and treated as a boy even when he was three score and 10. In these corridors I still hear echoes of, "When I was in Africa my boy did or did not do this", or, "I am looking forward to seeing my boys in India". Those statements are really heartfelt by me. When I hear them, I walk away.
	Slavery has also left a legacy of Creolisation. I refer to the rape of enslaved women by White plantation owners. Their issue, neither African nor Caucasian, have had a not altogether pleasant effect on the Caribbean people's growth. Most of us will have read the story of Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre and of the poor Dominican woman described as a Creole. Was she demented or having a crisis of identity? Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, helped me to understand the real crisis of Mrs Rochester. Those noble Lords who have read the book may never have grasped what was going on for that descendant of an enslaved African.
	The descendants, try as they will to get out of the trap, are hamstrung even after 100 years. They still retain the "auction" mentality that brought them into the new world. The drug-dealing politics of today and other forms of weaknesses prevail and have already been inherited.
	All is not gloom. The enslaved descendants have shown remarkable resilience. They have retained their skills as artisans and medicine men; they have learned to be equally at home in the cabbage patch of poor housing in Britain, in the cornfields of America and in the drawing rooms of present-day society. Previously they entered only as servants but today some of them are owners—only a very few. They have learnt to print newspapers and even to manage the master's business. They are found among the medical professions, yet still deep down they ask themselves, "Am I good enough?" This model exists. The descendants can be found in all walks of life but still accept that those less talented than themselves, if they are Caucasian, will always be in the driving seat.
	Researchers have only begun to look at this legacy, and I hope soon to be able to read a more sophisticated analysis. Woolman wrote of the slave trade and slavery that,
	"a heavy account lies against us as a civil society for oppressions committed against people who did not injure us".
	Injury still goes on. The legacy is alive. It is in all our institutions today.
	All, however, is not gloom. Again, now that we have won the bid for the Olympics in 2012, some of those descendants will no doubt bring "pride to us all", because by persistence the myth that black people cannot take their places in society is being eroded—but not quite fully.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Sandwich for achieving this debate today, as it serves to bring us up to date with a very uncomfortable aspect of modern life. We all thought that slavery was abolished in 1832, and in North America at the end of the Civil War, but perhaps that always was too complacent a view.
	Clearly, extreme poverty is at the root of most slavery, and the campaign to make poverty history, with its amazingly attended worldwide Live8 concerts all over the world, was a hopeful sign of people actively demonstrating their concern. It is worth reminding ourselves that that worldwide concern could only have been brought together by modern communication techniques. If ever there was a definitive example of public service broadcasting, this was it. But if poverty is a potential breeding ground for slavery, we all need also to acknowledge openly—governments especially—that complex modern forms of slavery are a quite distinct problem that must also be tackled directly and universally.
	Thus, it is particularly timely and appropriate that Hull University has set up the Wilberforce Institute. WISE's patron, Archbishop Tutu, said:
	"Tragically slavery and the violation of human rights are still with us in the 21st century. The Institute will be a beacon that will continue to throw a light on issues that too often are overlooked".
	My noble friend's choice of this subject for debate has made me aware of a quite remarkable, self-researched book, also applauded by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. The author, Kevin Bales, writes that,
	"everyone knows what slavery is—yet almost no-one knows".
	I suspect that that is all too true, though clearly not true of noble Lords.
	How many of our children, for example, are taught that it still exists today? Does the issue of slavery form part of today's school curriculum in the UK—not as history, but as current affairs, perhaps within the citizenship agenda—as an example of human rights abuse, alas still continuing today?
	In one or two places we are beginning to wake up to that. When I went with your Lordships' Select Committee on the BBC Charter to Bristol a couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to learn that at least in that city—whose historic prosperity was generated by the slave trade—the BBC has recently presented that aspect to schools. They produced an excellent programme, with the help of well-known local artists and of children, who researched the background of Bristol's most famous citizen, Edward Colston, the local merchant from two centuries ago. His huge wealth, of which he gave most generously to support many needy Bristol projects, came substantially from slave trading. The programme acknowledges, on the other hand, that much of multi-racial Bristol's multi-culturalism, of which they are rightly proud today, stems directly from that period.
	But do those of us living in our developed world really have any idea of the conditions under which the estimated 27 million slaves—which some put as high as 200 million—exist today? Their conditions, as Bales says, are far often worse than when slavery was legal. The types of slavery that he describes range right across the globe—from Thailand, Pakistan and India to Mauritania and Brazil—and are complex. Slave dealers are often involved in other criminal activities, not least drug-trafficking.
	I find one other element particularly disturbing. As population has increased so dramatically in poorer countries, today's individual slaves are of much less cash value to their owners than in Wilberforce's time. Today, buying a slave is no longer regarded as a major investment. That does not mean that the trade is not hugely profitable. The value of individual slaves has fallen so low that the aim of their owners is to exploit them ruthlessly, to get as much work out of them as quickly as possible, and then quite literally discard them.
	All slavery is abhorrent, but today I want to mention the particularly appalling abuse of women and children. First, children: we know something about war slavery, the kidnap and brutalisation of children to be child soldiers. Indeed, we have heard about that today and know about it from many press reports. Quite distinct from that, Bales tells us that in India there are between 65 and 100 million children under 14 years of age who are working more than eight hours a day. Of these, at least 15 million are literally child slaves. Anti-Slavery International puts the number of children in "unconditional" forms of labour at 8.5 million. It goes without saying that schooling, that lifeline to a better future, is probably not available to any of those children.
	Turning now to women; as we know, many remain second-class citizens in their own countries. It is unsurprising, then, that two-thirds of those trafficked for labour are women and girls. Worse still, almost all of those trafficked for sexual exploitation are women. Worldwide, that is a highly profitable trade and expanding rapidly. There are even examples beginning to appear in this country.
	I wish there was time to discuss in detail the slavery that Bales describes, of an increasing number of young, 14 year-old, Thai girls who are bought from their parents and find themselves working in brothels and subject to extreme violence if they perform inadequately or try to escape. They are also given impossibly large, completely phoney debts to pay back before they have any hope of release. The result, of course, is that the debt is never paid and they are never freed.
	A country like ours, which acts strongly to uphold the human rights of children, with our proud record of legislation and policies to promote equal opportunities between the sexes, surely has a particular duty to give the abolition of all slavery a far higher profile—especially where women and children are concerned—in our international responsibilities.
	This debate gives us the opportunity to ask exactly where action against slavery stands on our own Government's list of priorities. As my noble friend Lord Sandwich has asked, what action are Her Majesty's Government taking to promote the UN protocol to prevent, suppress and punish the trafficking of persons, especially women and children, which was passed as recently as 2000?
	With our Prime Minister's chairmanship of two important powerful international organisations this year, I hope that the Minister can assure the House that slavery features specifically on these agendas. It is surely time for us to acknowledge explicitly that the continuing stain of slavery shames every single one of us and that we are all partly responsible. Rather than leaving superb organisations such as Anti-Slavery International to fight the battle alone, we must all join in this great crusade.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, in his eloquent speech in opening our debate today, my noble friend Lord Sandwich reminded us that 2007 will be the bicentenary of the abolition of Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade. In her moving and very powerful speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, reminded us of the continuing legacy from our own time in that trade. Many noble Lords have reminded us also of the contemporary application of slavery in our own times.
	Estimates of the number of Africans sold into slavery vary, but during almost four centuries, a minimum of 12 million people were forcibly transported into bondage. Between 1701 and 1810, around 5.7 million people were taken into slavery, 2 million coming from the "Slave Coast" of west Africa. Around 39 per cent went to the Caribbean; 38 per cent to Brazil; 17 per cent to South America; and 6 per cent to North America.
	In the total Atlantic trade, British ships are estimated to have made more than 12,000 voyages and to have carried 2.6 million slaves. The trade before 1730 was dominated by London, but it was overtaken in the 1730s by Bristol, which was then eclipsed by Liverpool. In 1797, one in four ships leaving Liverpool was a slaver. Liverpool merchants handled five-eighths of the English slave trade and three-sevenths of the slave trade in Europe. In his Journal of a Slave Trader, John Newton, who was a Liverpool sea captain and who later penned the great hymn, "Amazing Grace", wrote this:
	"I have no sufficient data to warrant calculation but I suppose not less than one hundred thousand slaves are exported annually from all parts of Africa, and that more than one half of these are exported in English ships".
	The Liverpool historian, Ramsay Muir, calculated that in 1807 about £17 million—a staggering sum in those times—was generated in Liverpool through the slave trade. That was undoubtedly the darkest chapter in the city's history.
	In the millennium year, I was privileged to take to West Africa a declaration passed unanimously by Liverpool City Council recognising that role. The resolution stated that,
	"it is time the City gave expression to its sense of remorse over the effects that the slave trade had on countless millions of people and on the culture of the continent of Africa, the Caribbean and the USA. The Council will co-ordinate the use of all its powers to foster better race relations, greater equality of opportunities and even greater diversity so that the City is itself a celebration of multi-culturalism".
	As we have heard, when Wilberforce persuaded Parliament to make the trade illegal, it was against great and fierce opposition, much of it emanating from the city of Liverpool—a city that I had the privilege to represent in another place for more than 18 years. Captain Hugh Crow of Liverpool was one of a thousand captains who sailed from the port to obtain African slaves. But supporters of William Wilberforce included the Liverpool Member of Parliament, William Roscoe, who said:
	"I consider it the greatest happiness of my existence to lift up my voice on this occasion, with the friends of justice and humanity".
	On his return to Liverpool, he was assailed by the mob, pulled from his coach and horses in Castle Street and beaten up. He was never again returned to Parliament. Wilberforce told him that his vote had been worth 30 of anyone else's because he had had to pay a price. I very much agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, when she suggested that this should form part of our citizenship programme as an illustration of the horrors that took place, the voices that were raised and how legitimate parliamentary action was ultimately able to bring about change.
	The life of Roscoe certainly bears a great deal of scrutiny and recognition. He spent the remainder of his life working for the abolitionist cause. He penned an epic poem, The Wrongs of Africa, which seems particularly apposite this week when we have seen a great outpouring of interest in Africa during Live 8 and while the G8 summit is taking place. These lines appear in the poem:
	"Blush ye not to boast your equal laws,
	your just restraints,
	your rights defended,
	your liberties secured,
	whilst with an iron hand ye crushed to earth the helpless African;
	and bid him drink that cup of sorrow,
	which yourselves have dashed indignant,
	from oppression's fainting grasp".
	He went on to warn his fellow countryman:
	"Forget not Britain, higher still than thee, sits the great Judge of nations who can weigh the wrong and who can repay".
	Is that simply history? This is where, like my noble friend Lady Cox, I take issue somewhat with the earlier very interesting contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, although I agreed with much of what he said. But I think that, even in the technical sense, we can see plenty of examples of the kind of things that Roscoe, Wilberforce and the abolitionists would have recognised as slavery 200 years ago. Perhaps I may briefly give the House the example of Niger and, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, the role played by the Timidria organisation, which is a partner of Anti-Slavery International in exposing the contemporary slavery taking place there today.
	A few months ago, I had the privilege of attending at Chatham House the granting of an award to Timidria by Anti-Slavery International. The man who received it on behalf of Timidria, Ilguilas Weila, was subsequently arrested on 28 April this year in Niger for having exposed various forms of contemporary slavery in that country. Only as a result of international pressure, particularly through parliamentary Questions in this place—I applaud the role played by Her Majesty's Government in this—was he subsequently released.
	If we look for a moment at the survey carried out by Timidria, we are brought face-to-face with the realities of the slave trade in Africa today. As the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said, more than 11,000 people were interviewed and the research showed that they were able to identify individuals by name as their masters. Those interviewed generally worked directly for their master in exchange for minimal amounts of food and a place to sleep, which would typically be a shelter that they had built themselves. In response to the question, "Who makes the decision on your marriage?", 84 per cent—8,310 people—said that their master was solely responsible for the decision, while 82 per cent—6,103 people—replied that their master was solely responsible for the decision on whether their children attended school.
	The 1926 United Nations Slavery Convention defines slavery as,
	"the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised".
	Clearly, under that definition the vast majority of the 11,000 people interviewed are slaves. When the Minister comes to reply to this very welcome debate, I hope that she will be able to say something more about the position in Niger and other parts of West Africa.
	I very much welcome the opportunity to have this debate and there will be opportunities outside your Lordships' Chamber to hear about some of the countries to which others have referred. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea, which I have the honour to chair, will shortly take evidence on forced labour in North Korea. I hope that many Members of your Lordships' House will take the opportunity to hear that evidence when it is given.

Lord Brett: My Lords, the only advantage of being the thirteenth speaker of some 20 is that you do not have to prepare a speech, because if you do, it will be obsolete. The preceding speeches will have used most of your statistics, presented virtually all of your arguments, and done it in a rather more articulate way than you could do it yourself. I should declare an interest as director of the International Labour Organisation for the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Indeed I note that many of the statistics used were from a report published by the ILO a couple of months ago.
	Some other noble Lords and I are slightly at variance with the contribution of my noble friend Lord Giddens. We say, in what I think is an authentic estimate, though perhaps a conservative one, that the number of people in forced labour—we do not use the word "slavery"—is 12.3 million. I understood the distinction my noble friend was making in his contribution, but I doubt whether it is one that any of those 12.3 million people would choose to make. They would consider their forced labour to be a form of slavery. Therefore I, along with other noble Lords, think that this is a timely debate. I am grateful to the noble Earl for his sponsorship of it, and in particular for the questions that he puts to the Government.
	Having participated in a number of debates of this sort in this House, however, I have to say that sometimes our debates are more about illuminating the problems than about providing the Government with encouragement to find the answers. On this occasion, in the form of this report, we have some of the answers. This is the second report to be published—the first was four years ago—in support of the ILO declaration of fundamental rights and principles at work, one of which is that there shall be no forced labour.
	There is such labour, and we know it. We have heard calls for legislation, and we have heard that India has an extremely good judicial system, although it must be said that justice grinds remarkably slowly in that country. What it does not have is adequate enforcement.
	The noble Earl made the point that Nepal ended bonded labour. The day after, the landlords literally booted bonded labourers off their land. These labourers were free, with no property to live in, never mind property to own. Therefore it is not enough just to have laws, or enforcement of those laws. There must be a number of other components that will rehabilitate the victims of the forced labour.
	This document, which is not just another dry report to be considered and ignored, calls for a global alliance against forced labour. That means that this debate is not just a contribution to the debates in this House and to Her Majesty's Government, but part of a wider debate on how we have such a global alliance. We say in the report that there are basic goals and targets, such as the abolition of forced labour. We say we need a global alliance, by which we mean not only the international community, together with the lead UN agency on this matter, the ILO—which itself is tripartite: 50 per cent government, 25 per cent trade union and 25 per cent employers' organisations—but also civil society and the NGO community, many of which have been mentioned in previous contributions, and play a vital part. This problem cannot be solved only by governments. It has to be solved by civil society as well.
	We then ask how it is to be done. The answer has to be a national approach. The multinational agencies and financial institutions can do much, but there has to be a national commitment, led by government, that has to include all those component parts of civil society. There have to be time-bound national programmes. If you do not define a timescale within which a problem is to be solved, you do not solve the problem.
	I appreciated the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, but making poverty history and then ending slavery is getting it the wrong way around. We could probably end slavery a lot earlier than we could end poverty. That is why, in 1999, a new piece of international legislation called the Convention on Extreme Forms of Child Labour was brought in. We recognised that getting rid of extreme forms of child labour is itself a more possible target than simply trying to get rid of all child labour overnight.
	We have to look at poverty reduction strategies and programmes, the labour market and employment policies, migration policies and gender policies, and we have to create a national task force to get the political will to bring those things into place. There must be the right legislation, and appropriate mechanisms for identification, release, protection and the rehabilitation of forced labour victims. In that capacity, you need the assistance of those rich countries that have some moral obligation, as so graphically and movingly put by those who recognise from personal experience that the damage done in the form of slavery over 200 years is not eradicated by simply changing the law, in this country or elsewhere.
	Therefore, I think that Her Majesty's Government have done a tremendous amount. They play a large part in tackling this issue as a major supplier of overseas development assistance. I should like to see some of that development assistance targeted—perhaps in larger amounts—at the question of how to assist governments with time-bound programmes to end modern slavery within their own countries.
	We also have to look to the mote in our own eye. It is estimated that some 12.3 million people are enslaved in the developing world, along with an almost certain underestimate of 360,000 in the industrialised world. We know from the tragedy of the cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay that we have a problem in this country. Again, I congratulate Her Majesty's Government on bringing forward an innovative piece of legislation on gangmasters. It will put an end to the exploitation of workers in one industry, but the truth is that it needs to be expanded. Major human rights abuses take place in the construction industry with the often coerced importation of labour from eastern and central Europe. I hope that the Government will take the earliest opportunity to expand their reach by annexing other industries to the good work that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will undertake.
	We face one more problem. As a Government, on behalf of all the citizens of this country, we have a good policy of both looking to and welcoming legal migrants. We are less supportive of the victims known as illegal migrants. They arrive not by their own volition, but because they are trafficked in other ways. It is an area where the Government should put compassion at the centre of their policy. If they do that, then there are in the report—presented to the world last May and debated at the International Labour Conference last month—action plans that with financial support will enable the world's rich nations help the world's poor nations to bring an end to all modern forms of slavery.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, slavery was a crime against humanity or, as John Adams put it,
	"a foul contagion in the human character".
	As we have heard today, that foul contagion is still infecting slavery-like practices which, whether or not we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, have to be considered a world phenomenon. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Brett, has just said, the ILO has done a splendid job in putting before us a programme of action from which we can draw the figures. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, in his assertion that we do not have enough statistical data because all noble Lords have mentioned the 12.3 million people around the world who are being forced to work against their will under threat of some kind of penalty.
	Perhaps I may begin by referring to the most heartrending group of all, those children involuntarily involved in armed conflict. In Africa a few years ago, the number reached a peak of 120,000, while in Sri Lanka the recruiting of children by the LTTE at temples has recently been increasing in spite of a pledge it gave, along with a joint action plan signed with the Sri Lankan Government in July 2003, to end the use of child soldiers. Burma was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. There children are trained to kill by the army and rebel groups, which are said to have 77,000 children under military command, along with thousands more who are forced into ancillary work such as road building and porterage. In Colombia, some 11,000 children are on active service with armed groups, in particular the FARC.
	In February the United Nations Security Council considered a report from the Secretary General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict advocating a mechanism to track and monitor the recruitment of child soldiers. UNICEF said that it could do the job if given adequate security and the co-operation of governments and armed groups. Can the Minister say anything about the state of play on Mr Otunnu's proposals, and how the Government consider it would be possible to bring effective pressure to bear on bodies like the LTTE, the LRA or the FARC, to which UN sanctions would mean nothing?
	The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is potentially one of the most effective means of combating slavery and most African countries have ratified it. Niger, which has been mentioned several times during the course of our debate, ratified it in 1990, as did Sudan. But Niger's initial report under the convention was due in 1992 and was eight years' late, while Sudan's report, due in 1997, was also lodged in 2001 and was four years' late. There is no comeback on late reporting. I propose that, at the very least, a list should be published before every meeting of the Human Rights Commission and the Third Committee naming and shaming states that are late in reporting to any of the treaty bodies or in responding to requests for invitations by any of the special procedures.
	The C8, a UNICEF-sponsored meeting of children and young people to feed into the Gleneagles meeting, called on world leaders to end the trafficking of 1.2 million children for labour and prostitution. It is now an offence to traffic a person for prostitution or sexual exploitation in this country, but UNICEF would like us to ratify the optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, make it a crime to traffic a child for any purpose and provide specialist care for the victims of trafficking, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, as being woefully lacking in the case of women but totally absent for children.
	What is the Government's response to these demands? Is it now hard enough for traffickers to bring children into the UK? The cases mentioned by my noble friend Lord Roberts are relevant in this respect. Should there not be a presumption against admitting a child who is not accompanied by his or her natural parent; and that any such child who is admitted is regularly monitored by the local social services? I welcome the tightening-up on adoptions from abroad in the Children and Adoption Bill, but this has to be accompanied by closer scrutiny if informal arrangements for bringing children into this country by persons who are not the child's parents are to continue.
	In west Africa, there is a cultural tolerance, which has been mentioned, for parents renting the services of their children or even selling them. In Burkina Faso, for example, it is estimated that 175,000 children between six and 17 lived and worked apart from their parents, including 95,000 who worked abroad. In Benin there is a traditional practice known as "vidomegon" in which poor families place a child, generally a daughter, in the household of a wealthy patron, who will pay something for the child's services. In Gabon, trafficked children worked long hours for no wages, were physically abused, had no education and not enough to eat. In Niger, which has been mentioned several times, the slavery of a subordinate caste numbering some 43,000 people was sanctioned by custom, and the leaders of the NGO campaigning against the practice were imprisoned—although, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has told us, they were released, mainly as a result of pressure from Her Majesty's Government.
	I hope that during our EU and G8 presidencies we will help the poorest African countries to liberate their children from all these forms of slavery. I think the two go hand in hand. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, the abolition of child slavery cannot wait for the abolition of poverty; it should be dealt with as a matter of extreme urgency.
	Could not more be done to enhance the capacity of the AU to help member states to comply with the obligations they take on so blithely with little or no idea how to do so? President Obasanjo agreed with that proposition enthusiastically when I put it to him yesterday at a meeting in one of the Committee Rooms upstairs. A consultancy division in the AU, with help from the ILO, could advise member states on the measures that they need to take to comply with the Forced Labour Convention, which most of them have ratified.
	The poverty reduction strategy papers of states where forced labour or actual slavery exists should, as the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, said, spell out how they intend to eliminate these practices by 2015, the target date set by the ILO, and although the PRS process is intended to be country-driven, the BWIs say that they can help countries to identify key constraints in making progress towards PRS objectives, and this is surely a major constraint on the states concerned.
	As to bonded labour, the ILO points to Brazil as a model of what can be achieved if there is the political will. But in south Asia the problem continues to be pervasive in spite of laws which were meant to solve it. In India, the oppressed people belong almost entirely to the "scheduled castes" and "scheduled tribes" and are concentrated, as we have heard, in certain industries such as agriculture, brick making, carpet weaving, mining and quarrying. There is also discrimination in Pakistan where bonded workers come from low caste groups and non-Muslims. In Nepal, there is a hereditary class of bonded workers, the Kamaiyas, about whom we have heard. Many were freed in 2000, when the practice was declared illegal after a campaign by the British NGO, Action Aid. I think that I am right in saying that Bangladesh is the only country in south Asia that has no law against debt bondage. It was said at a conference in Dhaka in May that 1,492 children worked there in the sex trade as bonded workers. Sex workers all have to be registered with the local police who periodically arrest them and extort money from them.
	Getting rid of bonded labour is south Asia demands a change in culture, not simply the enactment of legislation. As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said, these matters cannot be left entirely to NGOs. It was good to see that the UN Human Rights Commission, which has in the past always turned a blind eye to caste-based slavery, has at last appointed special rapporteurs to look at the entrenched problems of these communities, which are estimated to number 260 million people world-wide. The only worry is that setting up these procedures will come out of the commission's budget, which has been frozen for years. It would be good if the UK would offer some financial help towards the cost of the new rapporteurs, in view of the widespread concern of the public in this country over caste-based labour.
	Your Lordships evidently agreed with the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull when it pointed out that the emancipation movement still has unfinished business. I very much hope that the Government will support it in its efforts to raise a further £10 million for its activities before the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007. The institute could help to ensure that the suggestions that we have been putting before the Government this morning are kept firmly on their agenda.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for initiating this important and highly relevant debate. We have already heard from many noble Lords about some of the horrors of contemporary slavery, which abounds world-wide today. There has been very little mention, as far as I can remember, of Africa.
	While researching the issue of slavery in the modern world, I found myself appalled by the differing statistics and the extent of the problem. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned the League of Nations Slavery Convention of 1926, which first defined slavery as:
	"The status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised".
	A slave is forced to work, owned or controlled by an employer; is treated as a commodity, or bought and sold as property; and is physically constrained or has his movements restricted.
	I was fascinated by the argument put by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, in his speech, which was, as always, eloquent. Nowadays, slavery manifests itself more obviously as internal and international trafficking, on which I shall concentrate today. The trafficking is predominantly of women and children for exploitation and cheap labour, usually in agriculture, domestic service, construction or the sex industry. When we consider slavery, we often imagine illegal sweatshops in third world countries. It is embarrassingly true that the problem of slavery is just as real in what used to be called the "first world" as it is in third world countries, as the noble Lord, Lord Brett, emphasised.
	In the past few years, we had the tragedy of the illegal immigrant cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay, who were mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester. We have also seen a growing awareness of the problem of people trafficking for the sex industry, specifically of women and children being lured to the UK, or being brought over, and being forced to work as prostitutes, having had their passports removed.
	On an international scale, there is growing concern for the orphans of the Tsunami and a call for greater security to be provided to protect them from being trafficked, exploited or adopted illegally. ECPAT, an organisation that focuses on protecting children from trafficking and exploitation, has been highly involved with calls for action in this area. We now have before the House the Children and Adoption Bill, which, through legal adoption, cracks down on child trafficking. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, rightly pointed out that it does nothing, however, to deal with the problem of controlling and registering international fostering. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether there will be action to move in this direction to protect children such as Victoria Climbié.
	Recently, there have also been growing fears for the disappearance of young African boys from schools in London, with possible links to child trafficking. It is impossible to estimate, and equally difficult to tackle, the issue of trafficking and exploitation of children and women. A Home Office report of 2000 concluded that:
	"It may be estimated that the scale of trafficking in women into and within the UK lies within the range of 142 and 1,420 women a year".
	Those vague figures give us little idea of the size of the problem. Can the Minister give us any clear idea of the scale of the trafficking of people into the UK for the purposes of sexual and non-sexual trafficking? If not, can she reassure us that research into the issue will take place at the soonest convenience?
	I notice that the Government have not yet signed up to the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, which was formally opened for signature at the Council of Europe's summit of heads of state in Warsaw on 16 and 17 May this year. That is the first ever international law specifically for protecting the rights of trafficked people. It guarantees a period of 30 days for the support, recovery and safe housing of trafficked people. It also gives them temporary residence, should they be in danger of returning to their own countries, and assists them with criminal proceedings. The Government claim that they have concerns about certain provisions of the convention and want to resolve those issues before signing it. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what those specific concerns are and how close the Government have come to resolving them.
	I hope that the Minister will reassure us that the Government are taking every possible step to take a hard line on trafficking in this country. There was certainly some criticism of how the Morecambe Bay incident was handled and how it could possibly have been avoided. ESPAT has warned that there is often an underlying tension between how the police view trafficked women as victims of crime and how the immigration services view them as illegal entrants and potential deportees. Can the Minister explain how, within the different parts of the Home Office the Government are working to harmonise the process of handling, assisting and supporting trafficked people?
	I end by saying that I share the sentiments of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who, in a speech in 1999, commented:
	"Slavery . . . I didn't know about all these forms that existed. I think it's largely because we aren't expecting it. It is hidden. Generally people would not believe that it is possible under modern conditions. They would say, 'No, I think you are making it all up', because it is just too incredible".

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for calling this debate and to all noble Lords for their participation. I also pay tribute to the work of Anti-Slavery International and other agencies concerned with tackling slavery.
	I well understand the view expressed by my noble friend Lord Giddens that modern slavery is rather different from what he called "old slavery". However, I believe that the essential point is that we must recognise the many and varied causes of injustice in the world today in order to find adequate solutions, which must also be varied.
	The debate has taken us to some dark depths of humanity, where vulnerable people living in poverty are denied their rights and are exploited by their fellow human beings. I trust, however, that in attempting to answer the many questions raised I will be able to demonstrate that this Government are firmly taking action to tackle the abhorrent forms of modern slavery. Any questions which remain unanswered I will of course respond to in writing.
	I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lady Howells of St Davids for her moving speech as a descendant of a slave. She is right about the legacy, but she is also right about the pride, which we should all take, in the achievement of black people in this country.
	As we have heard from the debate today, contemporary slavery covers a wide variety of human rights violations, from debt-bondage and forced labour to people trafficking and child labour. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department Fiona MacTaggart MP said in a debate on the same subject in another place last October,
	"Wherever, whenever and in whatever form slavery occurs, we unreservedly condemn it and are committed to eliminating it".—[Official Report, 14/10/04, Commons; Col. 145WH.]
	Slavery affects the poorest and most vulnerable groups in society. It is difficult to uncover and to resolve since fear and the need for survival deter its victims from coming forward. Solutions require governments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector to work together to break the cycle of poverty and social exclusion that are at the root of most forms of slavery today.
	As noble Lords have said, this is a timely debate. I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that the UK is using its concurrent presidencies of the G8 and the EU as a unique opportunity to drive forward the international agenda to improve the lives of millions of people, including the millions of people who are still enslaved.
	We are using the presidencies to push for a renewed global commitment to the millennium development goals, for the elimination of poverty, and we are calling on the international community to provide more and better aid, including debt relief.
	Since contemporary forms of slavery persist where poverty denies people their rights, we also support country-led development agendas and poverty-reduction strategies. In answer to the noble Lords, Lord Joffe, and Lord Avebury, one of our main aims is to ensure that the needs of the poor, particularly the most vulnerable groups, including those enslaved, are fully taken into account in these strategies.
	One of the key forms of contemporary slavery is bonded labour, where a person is required to give his labour as security for a loan. The DfID programme in Nepal assisted former bonded labourers through the freed Kamaiya food security programme. It supported a number of activities, including income generation, scholarships and access to drinking water and sanitation, in partnership with international, national and local NGOs. This work continues through a number of smaller-scale projects under the community support programme.
	As we have heard this afternoon, a striking feature of debt bondage is its inextricable link with caste discrimination and social exclusion. DfID is preparing a policy paper on social exclusion. That will outline how DfID intends to step up its work with its partners to ensure that the needs of all groups in society are included in country-assistance plans.
	DfID is already working with both government and civil society to develop inclusive policies. For example, in India, where DfID is working with the Ministry of Health on its national, reproductive and child health programme, specific targets have been developed for including Dalit women and children in the programme. These are being monitored and incentives have been developed to ensure that the Dalits are included.
	In answer to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, in India DfID is making good progress in its partnership with UNDP and the government of India in developing the access to justice programme, which is achieving real access to justice for poor and vulnerable groups in India, including Dalits. The views and issues of poor and vulnerable groups, including Dalits, will be the driving force behind the design and implementation of the access to justice programme.
	The Government strongly condemn forced labour in all its forms. We fully support the work of the ILO and work closely with the organisation to ensure that the international framework to combat abuses of workers' rights throughout the world is in place and effective. We also provide substantial financial support.
	The UK has ratified the ILO's "core labour standards", including those covering the abolition of forced labour. We have also taken specific actions to tackle forced labour within the United Kingdom. As noble Lords have said, those include the establishment of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Over the coming months, the authority will consult on the conditions that should be attached to the issue of a licence. It is anticipated that some of those will be based on tackling aspects of forced labour.
	I was interested in the point raised by my noble friend Lord Brett about the scope of the Act. At present the scope is restricted to agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering and associated processing and packaging sectors. Those are the sectors where the problem of illegal activity and exploitation by gangmasters is greatest. There is no provision within the Act requiring the Government to review the scope of the Act but the Government will certainly consider any proposals to do so.
	Next week, officials from across Whitehall will meet government officials from a number of "source" and "destination" countries, together with colleagues from the ILO special action programme, to combat forced labour as part of a project aimed at raising awareness and capacity of those responsible for implementing policies to combat the forced labour dimensions of human trafficking. We have already provided over £2 million to the ILO's special action programme.
	The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked whether the UK would work through the EU and the UN to ensure a higher priority for the eradication of slavery. Yes, in 1999–2000 the UK supported a proposal from Anti-Slavery International for the creation of a UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. Sadly, it did not receive sufficient support and the idea died. However, we would in theory support a special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery to replace the working group of the same name, provided that it had a robust mandate.
	Human trafficking is an appalling crime inflicting terrible and often lasting damage on its victims. The UK Government are committed to combating human trafficking. It is a priority for our presidency of the European Union, during which we intend to work with the Commission and our EU partners on the development of an EU action plan on trafficking. We also want to encourage greater police co-operation through Europol and the sharing of best practice on investigations and prosecutions.
	We have already taken important steps to tackle trafficking in the United Kingdom. In 2000 Reflex, a practical multi-agency task force, was set up to tackle all forms of people smuggling and trafficking, including through the establishment of a network of immigration liaison officers to work with other governments to disrupt and dismantle gangs.
	In 2003 the excellent Poppy Scheme, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was set up as a pilot by the Home Office and Eaves Housing for Women to provide safe accommodation and support for women trafficked into the United Kingdom for prostitution. The scheme acts as an advice and information point offering a range of support services and facilitates the voluntary return of victims to their country of origin. As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, noted, the pilot scheme has now ceased, but it is currently being evaluated. Decisions about its future scope, structure, capacity and funding will be taken in the light of the final evaluation. The Home Office, however, continues to fund the project in this interim period. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, I am appalled that there is trafficking of women and children in this country. It is an odious practice wherever it takes place, but especially when it is on our doorsteps.
	The UK has also enacted legislation to criminalise trafficking. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 both include tough maximum penalties of 14 years for new offences covering trafficking into, out of, or within the United Kingdom. Overseas the UK works to build capacity in source countries so that they can fight trafficking themselves. The Home Office is leading an EC-funded project with the Czech Ministry of the Interior to strengthen its capacity to combat trafficking.
	In response to the noble Lord's question about the EU directive on short-term permits, the UK chose not to opt in, owing to the potential adverse implications in respect of immigration controls. It was considered that the introduction of a specific immigration provision for victims of trafficking would encourage abusive claims, and that this would impact on the very people whom the measures were designed to help. This does not mean, however, that the UK is unsympathetic to the spirit of the directive or that we are unconcerned about the plight of the victims of this abuse.
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester so eloquently and vividly described, children are particularly vulnerable to abuses of their human rights. Their labour is cheap and they are easy to control. Around the world, millions of children are suffering as victims of conflict, abuse, exploitation and neglect. The Government are determined to work to end harmful forms of child labour. The FCO currently has two Global Opportunities Fund projects on the trafficking and forced labour of children. The first seeks to combat the trafficking of children to the Gulf states for use as camel jockeys. The second aims to reduce the prostitution and trafficking of children in selected districts of Metro Manila in the Philippines.
	The UK supports the ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour, which provides technical support to countries combating child labour and trafficking. We support initiatives through the World Bank, UNICEF and NGOs which are working to demobilise and rehabilitate these children.
	Vulnerable children are a high priority for the Government. We have endorsed the UNICEF Strategic Framework for the Protection, Care and Support of Orphans and Vulnerable Children living in a world with HIV/AIDS. This provides guidance for countries on developing national policies and programmes to respond to the needs of vulnerable children, including orphans, street children and those at risk from drugs, prostitution, trafficking, HIV and AIDS.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked about children trafficked to the UK and the role of the social services. The matter was raised also by the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. By April 2006, all local authorities will be required to have local safeguarding children boards in place. They will replace current area child protection committees and have a new responsibility to co-ordinate work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are privately fostered.
	We recognise that there is significant variation in the level of allowances paid to foster carers by authorities across the country. That is why we included the power to prescribe a national minimum allowance for foster carers in the Children Act 2004.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, raised the question of Burma and the need to improve human rights. Her Majesty's Government remain at the forefront of international efforts to press for improvements in the situation in Burma. We are actively working with our EU and international partners to promote reform and respect for human rights in Burma. We will continue, of course, to do so during the UK's presidency of the EU.
	On 16 May, our ambassador in Rangoon drew to the attention of the Burmese Foreign Minister the high level of concern in both Houses about human rights in Burma, in particular the human rights abuses being carried out in ethnic areas. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, quite rightly expressed concern about child soldiers in Burma. We too are concerned by the continued recruitment and use of child soldiers by the army and certain armed ethnic groups in Burma. We note the establishment by the SPDC of a committee for the prevention of military recruitment of under-age children and its welcome co-operation with UNICEF. We encourage the committee to implement its plan of action and to continue to co-operate with UNICEF. We also call on the SPDC to extend full co-operation to relevant international organisations and the special representative of the UN Secretary-General.
	I understand the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, and others about the reports of the missing African boys, but as noble Lords will have heard previously in this House, investigations by the Metropolitan Police following reports found no evidence at all to suggest that anything sinister had happened to them.
	The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, also expressed concern about China and the detention of about 260,000 people in camps. We make representations to China about the issue all the time and try to ensure that it fulfils its commitments under the 1951 refugee convention.
	The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to Niger. I thank him for recognising the part that the British Government played. Sadly, the practice of slavery still exists, and I acknowledge the work of Timidria in Niger and its partner organisation, Anti-Slavery International, for their work on the ground to help those held in slave conditions. I agree that we need to study the research that has already been carried out.
	We are greatly concerned by the human rights violations in Sudan, and strongly condemn the slave-like practices of abduction, trafficking and forced labour. Slavery is explicitly prohibited by both the outgoing 1998 constitution, the comprehensive peace agreement and the current draft of the interim constitution. But we continue to be gravely concerned by the ongoing human rights abuses.
	The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for International Development and the Minister for Africa have all recently visited Sudan. They have pressed the Government strongly on the need to stop further human rights abuses and to bring those responsible to justice. We will continue to insist on that bilaterally, through both the EU and the UN.
	I shall outline some of the preparations for 2007, which will be the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire. I was interested to learn more from the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, about the excellent work of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol, and I shall certainly ask my colleagues in the DCMS about funding.
	Like the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, I, too, believe that we should include both the history of slavery and current slavery in our citizenship classes. I hope that the bicentenary will give teachers a good hook for their citizenship lessons. In marking the bicentenary, we want everyone to understand the events of 1807 and the role that Britain played. We wish to learn from the past.
	It is also important to highlight the issues of contemporary slavery, about which we have spoken today. The celebration of the bicentenary is not just for the Government to take part in, but educational, cultural, voluntary and community organisations should play a part as well. I note that Churches are already mobilised to take action. They are actively planning for the bicentenary.
	Like other noble Lords, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the excellent initiative of the University of Hull to set up the Wilberforce Institute for the study of slavery. I hope that we can learn from the research that they will be undertaking. In the next two years Whitehall departments will be working together to develop specific proposals for the Government's contribution to the bicentenary, and we welcome ideas on how best to do so. All ideas are welcome.
	I thank noble Lords for enabling this important and timely debate, and strongly reiterate the Government's commitment to social justice and to eradicating contemporary forms of slavery throughout the world.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I never expected a debate on contemporary forms of slavery to draw such a large audience. Long may it continue. I hope that all noble Lords heard the words of our very conscientious new Minister who gave such an excellent reply and laid out some of the many areas in which the Government are active.
	I realise that we are waiting for an important Statement and that sad events have occurred, so I shall not pick up the points that I had intended to pick up. There was a nice tension between—not so much the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and others, which I understand in an academic context—the noble Lords, Lord Joffe and Lord Avebury, who need to go on discussing the question of whether slavery or poverty should be abolished first. That is a subtle debate, which I hope will continue.
	I also single out the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, as others have done, because the mere mention of Jean Rhys and Wide Sargasso Sea brings back chilling memories. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

London: Terrorist Attacks

Lord Rooker: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made a short while ago in the other place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
	"As the House will know, there has this morning been a number of terrorist attacks in central London. The situation is unfolding and I am not yet in a position to give a conclusive account of all that has happened, but I wanted to keep the House as fully informed as possible.
	"I begin by expressing on behalf of the whole Government our sympathy for the friends and families of those who have died or been injured. I am not in a position at this time to give details.
	"Four explosions have been confirmed: one on a tube train between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street; the second on a bus in Woburn Place; the third on a tube train between Russell Square and Kings Cross; and, fourthly, on a tube train at Edgware tube station. As yet we do not know who, or which organisations, are responsible for these criminal and appalling attacks.
	"Of course, our first responsibility is to protect and support the public at this time. The Metropolitan Police are in operational command, using well established and tested procedures. The health services are providing first-class care.
	"The Underground is closed and will remain so for some time. It will certainly be closed today. There are no buses in central London. Transport for London will decide when to resume services later today.
	"Overground services are subject to substantial delays. Most stations are open, but some mainline stations are closed. We will try to reopen them later today. Airports are operating normally.
	"People are strongly advised not to travel into central London. The emergency services must be allowed to do their jobs.
	"The Cabinet was informed this morning and I have chaired a COBRA meeting to ensure that the whole Government commitment is properly co-ordinated and any necessary support provided. The Prime Minister is returning to London from Gleneagles to chair a COBRA meeting later today.
	"I will continue to keep the House fully informed".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, all of your Lordships will be grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement on this tragic occasion. It is of course much too early to speculate on what lies behind it and why it happened. As the Minister reminded us, four bombs have been reported, although at some stage there were reports of a higher number. News is still coming in and we still have to learn about some of those trapped in the Tube.
	We strongly join Ministers in offering our deepest sympathies to the bereaved, those who have been injured and to all the families of those who have lost their lives. We salute the police, fire, ambulance and hospital services, who as usual have been superb. They have been wonderful, as we expect and as they always are. We give the Government unqualified support in carrying through the necessary duties in both trying to find out what happened and in managing the situation to bring things back to normal. Normal is where this country is and intends to remain, despite these horrible challenges.
	The closing of the public transport service has, as the Minister indicated, been prompt—necessarily so—but we must face the fact that it leaves thousands of people stranded and unable either to get home, get in, join their families or get to or from work. If the Government could get news to us as soon as possible of when the transport systems will open again, that would be very helpful. For instance, Network Rail stopped trains up to 50 miles away from London, barring people from getting into London. That obviously creates problems that are made worse by the fact that the mobile telephone system has rightly devoted half of its networks to the emergency services. That has means that the other half has had to carry an enormous load of anxious telephone calls, few of which have got through. So all this is creating strains to which we must adjust. The sooner we know how the system will return to normal the better.
	This is a reminder that in an open society we are all very vulnerable. We know our intelligence has been very good and assiduous but, obviously, what has been perpetrated, required the most careful planning and co-ordination. It was a co-ordinated and carefully planned set of attacks on innocent people. I believe and assume that we shall hear more on Monday, when we shall also receive a Statement on the G8 and its views on the situation.
	That reminds us that we are part of a globally exposed system. We have to work very closely together with all our allies and friends all round the world, even though what has happened today has happened in our capital city. Whoever are the perpetrators, we are dealing with an enemy who is sophisticated, patient, disciplined, lethal and with limitless hostility towards us and our values and who makes no distinction at all between civilian and military targets. However careful our preparations and however brisk and effective our response—as it has been—as a result of this tragedy today, it is clear that we have to be still more careful in the future.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I associate those on this side of the House with the sentiments already expressed. I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement to your Lordships' House. I agree with the Home Secretary that it is far too early to build a total picture of what has happened, other than that we accept that terrorism has raised its ugly head in this country. There is evidence of fatalities and our condolences go to the families of those who have suffered.
	At this stage, it is important that we supply as much information as possible to the public to ensure that they are aware of the threats facings us, but more importantly to seek their co-operation to ensure that safety measures are taken and that any suspicious activities are reported to the police.
	We cannot stress more forcefully the need for reliable information to be supplied as soon as possible. We wish to know how the contingency plans are working in London and in other parts of the country. We wish to know whether air traffic is adequately monitored as regards flights into and over London.
	I am delighted that the Prime Minister is returning to this country to chair the meeting of COBRA and I hope that he will take the opportunity to address the nation to ensure that public confidence is maintained and that fear does not grip vulnerable and older people.
	Will the Minister confirm the latest breaking news that al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for these attacks? I also ask him to ensure that there is no backlash on our law-abiding, diverse community as a result of what has happened today. We have always maintained that terrorism must be defeated. What has happened today will have repercussions for our society for a very long time to come. We have to be vigilant and we should be grateful that the police, ambulance and other services are playing their important parts in the protection of the public. We thank them for that.
	We value our liberty. Let the message go out from your Lordships' House that freedom, liberty and democracy are very precious to us and we shall not allow any act of terrorism to take them away.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am very grateful for the messages from both Front Benches who speak for the whole House. I shall not speculate. I cannot comment on anything that might be breaking or otherwise, as the Home Secretary did not. On behalf of the Government, I can say that we shall keep both Houses fully informed. It is important that the public are given accurate information, and that we do not feed speculation. Quite clearly, as indicated, there needs to be accurate announcements of the transport situation as early as possible, and we shall seek to ensure that that takes place.
	We do not know any of the details about the casualties, but on speculation about who might be responsible, the only message we have to give is one given by the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister early this morning: it does not matter who was responsible. The one thing they will learn from this, if they did not understand it before, is that our will to carry on as normal with our way of life, at our choice, is much greater than their will to disrupt it.

Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I thank the Government and, from these Benches, congratulate the Metropolitan Police and the public services on their swift and effective response. I saw it myself. I was at Edgware Tube station when the bomb went off this morning. It is still ringing in my ears, but it is going.
	I ask the Minister again, subject to the protection of the public, to try as much as possible to minimise the disruption to the life of this great city and nation. As he said himself, we have to show that those who explode bombs have not succeeded.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord. We will give as much accurate information as we can, as quickly as possible.

The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the prayerful concern, sympathy and support from these Benches for all the casualties, and our absolute support and appreciation for the work of the security services? Will the Minister join me in assuring our friends and partners in other faith and minority communities in the cities of this country that we will do all in our power to ensure that nothing disrupts or undermines the trusting relationships that we have established, and the social cohesion that is so vital to all our people in the days ahead?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the remarks of the right reverend Prelate. It is quite clear that, as we sit here, in parts of London there are people working to save lives in Underground stations. We know what is going on. We send them, and all the families who are incredibly worried, our best wishes.
	On this point, however, the perpetrators are going to find out that we are not many communities: we are actually one community. That is the message they will get from this.

Lord Carlile of Berriew: My Lords, in sharing the sentiments which have already been expressed around the House, I invite the Minister to share the opinion that we must digest any lessons of this incident with care and calm, and not in a hurry.
	Above all, I invite the Minister to agree, on behalf of the Government, that any legislative response to what has occurred—and there may well have to be one—should be considered rather than hasty, and founded on evidence rather than reaction.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the remarks of the noble Lord. Whatever we do will be proportionate to what is actually needed to combat the threat.

Lord Bhatia: My Lords, it is always very distressing to hear about terrorist attacks, no matter where they take place or who carried them out. Innocent lives being lost must be distressing to all of us, in Britain and elsewhere.
	I should like to share with your Lordships what I have gone through since this morning. As I was driving through Westminster, I heard on the radio that there was a terrorist attack. The first news came in that it was at Liverpool Street station. I have an office in the City, right opposite Liverpool Street station.
	My first concern was for my staff. I know that three of my staff members were coming into Liverpool Street station at about that time. My staff is composed of non- ethnic and ethnic minorities working in my office. It took me an hour to track them down. One had arrived, two others could not be found. My telephone was engaged for one hour. While that was going on, a number of calls from my family had been made to me on my mobile phone. My daughters and my son-in-law were all concerned about my safety, and they could not get me on the phone.
	Once I had finished talking to my office, I finally telephoned my family members and was told that all was well. The first concern after that was to send my staff back home as quickly as possible and close the office. As I speak, I hope that that has taken place.
	I have a bigger concern, however, for all of us. We have seen and heard what happened after 9/11. There was a terrible backlash on the ethnic minority communities and the Muslim community, which is part of the ethnic minority communities living in this country. We have lived with this for the past three years. Those attacks, verbal and physical, have abated slightly, but there is still a flavour of what goes on in the wider society. There are extremists in our communities, in our country, who will take the first opportunity to attack ethnic minorities if they can.
	The Prime Minister was quick to deal with terrorism from Islam immediately after 9/11. I give credit to the Government and to the Prime Minister for having probably saved quite a few lives immediately after 9/11. I hope that the Government this time round will also send a powerful message to the white communities in this country to make sure that the ethnic minorities in the UK are properly protected and looked after by all necessary forces of law. I also hope that the Government will able to track down these terrorists, few that they are, and take them to law and that all processes of law are taken against them.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's contribution, but I repeat what I said: it is best not to feed the speculation. We do not know who is responsible. Whoever is responsible will find out that they will not disrupt our way of life. They will not divide us. We are one community in this country: it is our way of life. That is the key thing: we are not divided on this, but we should not feed the speculation about who or which organisations might have been responsible.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, I associate myself with the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, in expressing complete outrage at the fact that we have suffered terrorist incidents in this city. I completely concur with the Minister's views on the fact that we are one community. We are indivisible as we extend our heartfelt condolences to all people of all faiths and communities who live in London, many of whom are among the very emergency services that are saving lives as we stand here today.
	I concur with the Minister in not encouraging speculation and I wonder whether the Government have used such influence as they have with the media to encourage them not to do so in order to reduce any possibility of intercommunal tension at this difficult time.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is seductive, but part of our free society is that the Government do not tell the media how and what to report. They are responsible; they are doing their job informing people, but we must not feed the speculation or change our way of life because of that.

Lord Tunnicliffe: My Lords, I declare an interest as a former managing director and chairman of London Underground. I join the whole House in extending my sympathy to members of the public and the emergency services, but also ask that we think of the men and women in London Underground today and over the next days and weeks. They would have been present when the bombs went off and would have been expected to move into carefully prepared programmes of reaction. At every level from the most junior level upwards they would have been expected to show leadership, initiate the evacuation and take the people out of the system. It would be their command and control systems, integrating with the emergency services, that would be put into action to mitigate the effects.
	It is also the men and women of London Underground and their suppliers who, as we speak, will be meeting in groups and planning the recovery of the system. It will be a tough job, because not only will there be direct physical damage but there will certainly be additional collateral damage to systems because of the various shocks the system has had.
	It is essential that we get the system back working quickly. Today is unprecedented, but nevertheless a terrorist campaign is not. We fought one in the 1990s and we won it by exhibiting the resilience of the system and the resilience of Londoners to carry on in a terrorist campaign and run the city. It is important that we do that quickly. We can help as parliamentarians by not overreacting. We must be careful not to seek assurances about security that are impossible. We must recognise that the authorities and the police will do all that is reasonably practical, which is the most that they can ever do.
	If we over-react, we may throttle the city and hand the terrorists their victory. Reaction to this tragedy must be mature. We must work together as a whole city to help to get business back to normal as quickly as possible and to deny the terrorists a victory.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the whole House will be grateful for what my noble friend said about the Underground workers. As my right honourable friend Frank Dobson said in the other place, it is right to remind people in his constituency that in situations such as this the emergency services, the doctors, the nurses and the workers in the transport undertakings are going towards the area of trouble while the rest of us are trying to get away from it. We must pay tribute to their resilience and their training in dealing with these situations.

Lord Condon: My Lords, I hope the Minister will accept that the words of encouragement and support in this House for the emergency services will be very well received, as no doubt will be the words of support from the other place. I add my support.
	Historically, London has shown its resolve in the face of terrorism and attacks on its transport systems by getting them back into full operation as quickly as possible. Decision makers around the capital will today be faced with the very hard decision of when to go live again with the transport system. I hope they will not delay a minute longer than is necessary because, by getting the system back up and running as soon as possible, the terrorists will not have the oxygen of publicity for a second longer than they deserve.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am absolutely certain that the words of the noble Lord will be listened to. They are a tribute to the Metropolitan Police—who, as I said in the Statement, are in operational command of the situation—and all of their colleagues in the emergency services. They know that one of the ways in which we have previously been successful in fighting off terrorism has been by getting the system back to normal as quickly as possible. We must carry on with our ordinary lives while seeking out those responsible for this dastardly deed.

Baroness David: My Lords, can the Minister assure us that we will be kept informed regularly about what is available so that the public do not clutter up the streets and the services, and so that we know what to do?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, information will be given, statements will be made to Parliament and Ministers will make statements through the media and Parliament, but on the basis of giving the public accurate information and not of feeding speculation, which would be of no service whatever. As I have said, we will get the transport system back to normal as quickly as possible. Information on that will be given to the public as soon as possible later today.

Baroness Uddin: My Lords, I share the condemnations of the barbaric act that London has faced today. I express my deep sympathy and condolences to the bereaved families and those who have been injured by this horrific attack.
	I do not need to remind your Lordships of the previous attacks on Liverpool Street which crippled the City of London for a considerable time. I am pleased to see the enormous amount of good wishes that have been expressed by this House and the other place today. I extend my congratulations on the speedy way in which the emergency services have reacted.
	I share the deep concern expressed so eloquently by the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Bhatia, and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. I am reassured by my noble friend's comments that we are all one community. We have a tremendous record of good relationships between all sections of the community and I accept his reassurance.
	I am sure that if the Government require any assistance it will be provided by all sections of the House. I hope that we will be able to work together and outlive this terrible tragedy.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am very grateful for my noble friend's words. She speaks for all of us in her comments on various communities and the emergency services. Together we will defeat this, as we have done in the past.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is the blood supply adequate, as there have been many serious injuries? I am sure that many noble Lords would give blood, if needed.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am in no position whatever to comment on any specific issues. I have heard comments made on those issues in the media. I shall not repeat those as that would add to speculation based on information that I do not have.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, in the televised statement that the Prime Minister made earlier today, he indicated that in his view these attacks were deliberately designed to coincide with the beginning of the Gleneagles Summit. I am sure we all welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is returning to London today for briefing from COBRA and others who have been dealing with the morning's events. However, I hope we can also agree that it is entirely right that the Prime Minister should then return to the Gleneagles Summit and that he should continue to argue his case on important issues concerning Africa and climate change. We should all support the Prime Minister in the judgment that he has made that the Gleneagles Summit should continue as planned.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely spot on. I believe that the House is with her on that. As the Prime Minister said, these events will not disrupt the summit or interfere with the summit's agenda. In view of the summit's agenda on poverty and the future climate of the planet, it is outrageous that any attempt should be made to disrupt it. As I understand it, the Prime Minister will, indeed, return to Gleneagles to continue with the G8 Summit. The other members of the summit will, of course, continue with the programme.

Lord Patel of Blackburn: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Government and the Minister on not speculating on who the culprits are and on reminding us that we are one community. I express my personal view that no faith, whether Hinduism, Islam or Christianity, permits this kind of barbaric terrorism. As a Muslim, I condemn these kind of terrorist activities by anyone in any part of the world.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I believe that the whole House is grateful for my noble friend's words and the way that he expressed them.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I pay tribute to the efforts of Ministers and the Government regarding the contingency plans that they put in place some time ago.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am very grateful. The public will see from today's events that an enormous amount of planning has gone on in recent years. Much of it cannot be boasted about. It is tested from time to time. Today it has been put into use.

Palliative Care

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: rose to call attention to the availability of palliative care; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, on this sad day I would like to begin by paying tribute to the rail company that brought me here, First Great Western. I have seen at first hand how it coped as today's events unfolded. I pay tribute specifically to the staff of St Mary's Hospital in Paddington. I have heard how brilliantly they have coped today.
	I welcome, and look forward to, the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, which we shall hear later.
	It is an honour to open the debate on this important subject and I declare all my interests in all aspects of palliative care. Britain has led and continues to lead the world in the provision of palliative care, but, sadly, specialist services are inequitably distributed, and this may worsen. Training in the basics for the vast majority of doctors and nurses is grossly inadequate, and the lack of integration of social care with healthcare is denying people dignity.
	We will all die, more than half of us with a terminal phase to illness. We want to be cared for adequately in a way that gives us real choices about place of care, what we want done and what we do not want, sensitive to those cultural and religious needs that so many people have, safe in the knowledge that we will have good symptom control to allow us to complete our last tasks of life with dignity, and that those we love will be supported in grieving.
	Palliative care is not just about dying. Indeed, when someone is actually dying the opportunity really to make a huge difference has often been missed. It is an essential approach to care from the time of diagnosis, as so often when cancer or other disease is diagnosed it is non-curable and the most that active anti-disease treatments can do is to postpone death by weeks or months. It is only by integrated care that the symptoms of advanced cancer can be tamed: more than 80 per cent of patients with cancer experience pain, and more than two-thirds of those with advanced non-malignant disease also have pain problems. Almost half of patients nearing death are breathless, and half of cancer patients and a quarter of non-cancer patients have nausea and vomiting. Depression hits two-fifths of patients.
	Palliative care is not geriatric care. In my own Marie Curie hospice, the average age of patients is 72 years old. Patients should be assured that they can plan to meet their goals in the unpredictable time left and should know that the service will support them. Indeed, unpredictability abounds because it is notoriously difficult to prognosticate with any accuracy. I have helped to arrange weddings in those last days or weeks of life, sometimes within hours: one young woman had her five children as bridesmaids for her wedding in the hospice. A father baptised his son as his final gift. Parents leave memory boxes for their children with letters to be opened on key birthdays, and other people describe a peace of mind that comes from being assured of attention to their needs. Unexpected time becomes precious: one man whose wife lived six extra weeks after an intervention said:
	"Six weeks might seem like no time to you, but to us it was lifetime. We did so much talking and I am now a different man, able to bring up the children, thanks to those six weeks".
	The World Health Organisation defines palliative care as,
	"the total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment. Control of pain, of other symptoms, and of psychological, social and spiritual problems is paramount. The goal of palliative care is the achievement of the best possible quality of life for patients and their families".
	Britain has led the rest of the world in the care of those facing death. We have educated doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals from around the globe. Pioneers such as Dame Cicely Saunders have been visionary role models in many countries. We know how to control pain, even difficult neuropathic pains, control other symptoms, such as breathlessness and sickness, and avoid constipation and pressure sores. Crucially, we have proven that you can enhance independent quality of life, despite life ebbing away.
	It has been estimated in Canada that, on average, five people are deeply affected by each person's death and another 25 are also affected. So make no mistake: bad care does not die with the patient. It lives on in the memories of at least five, and possibly 30, people, altering their view of the future that they want for themselves.
	The House of Commons Health Select Committee report identified gross deficiencies in the provision of palliative care in the UK. The National Audit Office's report also makes salutary reading. It catalogues half of hospital patients experiencing moderate to severe pain, with over a quarter of those feeling that hospital staff did not do all they could to try to relieve it. One in three cancer patients felt so anxious and/or depressed that they needed help to cope, but one fifth of those reported that hospital staff did not do all they could.
	The Government must be congratulated because they have certainly recognised and fostered palliative care, as demonstrated by their provision of an additional £50 million per annum for specialist palliative care since 2003–04. In 2003–04, that £50 million was allocated to the 34 cancer networks whose palliative care plans were monitored centrally. In 2004–05, it was allocated to the primary care trust baselines. It is ring-fenced until 2006–07, but then it enters the general pot. Will it continue to iron out inequities? I fear that it will be swallowed up in the financial deficits that PCTs face, and will not help iron out some of those inequities in provision. In their manifesto, this Government notably and importantly committed to:
	"double the investment going into palliative care services, giving more people the choice to be treated at home".
	So how is this going to happen? How is this investment going to be made?
	In 1995 the Calman Hine report recommended a core multi-professional team to be integrated with cancer care. Why is that not ubiquitous? In Cardiff's Velindre Cancer Centre, where I work, there is a ward for the sickest patients in the hospital, where all the patients are automatically under palliative care as well as oncology. The oncologist steers the anticancer treatments and, secondarily, we attend to other domains of their needs. But that model is almost unique. Only 228 hospitals have palliative care support teams, or support nurses, to ensure that palliative care advice and input is readily available on the wards. Even in those hospitals, the staff will tell you that care sadly varies widely from one ward to another.
	However, gross inequities in provision abound on a wider scale. The needs assessment developed by Peter Tebbit within the National Council for Palliative Care has shown wide variations in provision. Wide variations exist in palliative care resource needs per head of population because mortality rates and social depravation vary. For example, the Northern Cancer Network needs 60 per cent more service provision than Thames Valley—but it does not have it. Some PCTs provide a service twice as extensive as their neighbouring PCT despite similar patterns of need. Historically, hospice developments were ad hoc—often, driven by strong and highly motivated personalities. But those days must be over, as we try to plug the gaps.
	Some organisational issues aggravate the gaps in provision. Out-of-hours cover is patchy and the changes in primary care provision out-of-hours have aggravated those gaps. Perhaps nine-to-five weekday working for specialist palliative care nurses is over, as the need for services, particularly out-of-hours, remains unmet. No amount of cold education will ever alter this. Such provision, out-of-hours, needs to be built into contracts in the future because crises arrive at nights, at weekends or at bank holidays. These times tax patients and their carers to the limits.
	Over half of all cancer deaths, and those from other causes occur, in hospital. Yet people so often state that they want to spend their last days at home. Marie Cure Nurses aim to help this, caring for half of all cancer patients dying at home. They remain with a family when things are difficult, but in the last year the contracting from PCTs for this service has fallen in real terms, as there has been no uplift to account for the nurses' pay award. Only 25 per cent are at home when they die, although 64 per cent of the population expresses a wish to die at home.
	Yet inequities also occur by age and sometimes by ethnic or cultural group. A Help the Aged report identified the needs of older people who are dying, and that they are often ignored. They are, in the words of their report:
	"more likely than younger people to experience multiple medical conditions, repeated hospital admissions, lack of preventative planning, under-recognition of symptoms and physical or mental impairment. They are more likely to experience social isolation and economic hardship."
	However,
	"they are less likely than younger people to receive support at home, in hospital or in a hospice, or to receive attention from GPs or district nurses during the last year of their lives. Older people are often described as the 'disadvantaged dying'."
	Lack of social care hits the elderly hard. No matter how many healthcare professionals visit, your dignity is undermined if the food in the fridge is going off, if your hair is unkempt, your nails uncut and your underwear unwashed because social care is not there. Yet the young are also hit by such failures. Those with motor neurone disease cannot wait weeks for equipment or adaptations to the home. As one patient so eloquently stated, "By the time the changes are done, the disease has raced ahead, and it's too late!"
	Equipment fails to arrive on time, but then it often remains uncollected after a patient dies, depriving others and providing painful memories to the bereaved of disability that detracts from memories of the essence of the person they loved. One patient's wheelchair—and I know about this first-hand—was lost by the service, just when his wife was herself dying in hospital. That cannot be acceptable. Some parts of England have efficient, rapidly responsive services. Why not everywhere?
	I turn to paediatric services. There is an acute shortage of paediatric palliative care medicine consultants in this country, yet many children are dying with predictable end points as well.
	Equipment, arranging social care and sorting out continuity of care eligibility often delays the discharge from hospital to home, so a unique window of opportunity can be missed. Time is not kind to these patients. They cannot wait in a queue behind planned discharges from the hospital sector.
	So, we have inequities by postcode, by place of care, and even down to differences on different wards within the same hospital; by age and by disease group. Over 95 per cent of patients admitted to a hospice have cancer. Many neurology and cardio-respiratory services have not pushed for specialist palliative care availability in the same way as cancer services have, so those patients with non-cancer diagnoses are left to suffer unnecessarily.
	Are there solutions and is there a way forward? I urge the Government to work in partnership with the voluntary organisations such as Marie Curie Cancer Care to develop the answers that are so sorely needed. More resources are definitely required. The national tariff on the pricing of services may help, provided that it is sensitive enough to ensure that the needs of some patients for longer in-patient stays are recognised without creating a perverse incentive that fails to get home fast those who wish to go. However, it is fair to say that it has been estimated that at the moment, the charitable sector is providing the equivalent of £100 million-worth of baseline care which would otherwise fall to the NHS. I also make a plea to the Minister that the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill should be revised so that those in hospice beds would now be included.
	If staff are trained routinely to ask patients about their pain, they are told, but those patients who are not asked about it will simply suffer in silence. The pain score should become a routine observation in the same way as the temperature and pulse rate. Sadly, Shipman has done untold damage to pain control. Some GPs now report feeling fearful of prescribing adequate doses of analgesics as there is a perception that the GMC is just waiting for another Shipman case. But all the evidence shows clearly that you do not shorten life by correctly titrating up morphine and other drugs to achieve pain and symptom relief. But the educational push needs to continue and the rumours that somehow you can kill patients with good symptom control must be stopped. You do not.
	The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has produced palliative care guidance. Professor Mike Richards has driven forwards the Government's End-of- Life care initiative, with the Gold Standards Framework covering communication, co-ordination, control of symptoms, continuity of out-of-hours care, continued learning, carer support and care in the dying phase. And in that dying phase, during the last 48 hours of life, the Liverpool Care Pathway has been shown to make enormous improvements to care in a cost-effective manner. So how can we ensure that this is available to all?
	I was not a fan of targets, but I eat humble pie. They have achieved changes. After years of encouraging more education in the basics of generic palliative care, is it not time to ensure that core general palliative care training is part of revalidation so that every service will have staff with up-to-date knowledge and attitudes? We know what to do, but we are not doing it for all those who could benefit. Do we need legislation to ensure that those who need good end-of-life care can always access it? I beg to move for Papers.

Lord MacKenzie of Culkein: My Lords, we are most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for introducing this timely debate on the availability of palliative care. I declare an interest in that I am associated with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Motor Neurone Disease, and I am grateful to the Motor Neurone Disease Association and to all other interests for their briefings on this debate. I shall concentrate on palliative care as it affects motor neurone disease, but I am sure that much of what I say will have a more general application.
	As a registered general nurse, I knew a little bit about motor neurone disease, but like, I suspect, all too many health professionals, I did not know very much. The full impact of this truly dreadful disease hit me in no uncertain terms when a very close friend and former colleague was diagnosed with it about four years ago, some two years after his symptoms first appeared. Sadly, he passed away some three weeks ago. If it is possible to get a half decent roll of the dice, given the awfulness of motor neurone disease, then my friend was perhaps fortunate on two counts. First, the bulbar symptoms, so often found, were almost entirely absent—the speech, swallowing and respiration were unaffected—although he was otherwise completely paralysed for a very long time.
	Secondly, from the time of diagnosis my friend had tremendous support from all of the agencies, whether National Health Service, social services or the voluntary and charitable sector, as well as of course from his family. So I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all those agencies, including the Sutton and Merton multidisciplinary motor neurone disease team. I want to make special mention of St Raphael's Hospice, a small hospice in Cheam in Surrey, for its support for the day care centre for the regular and sometimes emergency admissions for respite, and for its care and devotion in my friend's final few weeks. It was significant that he always felt safe at St Raphael's Hospice. As a nurse, I know good care when I see it and all the staff at this hospice deserve the highest praise.
	Much depends, if I may continue the metaphor, on the roll of the dice. In many parts of the country palliative care, such as I have just described, is not available. Many palliative care units do not provide day care or respite care for people with motor neurone disease. I understand that more hospices admit people with this disease in the terminal stages, but the number doing so is still less than 50 per cent. No doubt that is in part due to the higher proportion of staff time required to care for motor neurone disease patients and partly due to the fact that most NHS and voluntary sector palliative care units are geared to malignancies.
	Given the origins of the hospice movement and the much higher incidence of malignancies, I can understand why that situation has developed. Can the Minister say anything this afternoon on whether there is any realistic prospect of work being done to ensure that access to palliative care, whether for respite or terminal care, is on the basis of clinical need and not of disease type?
	It follows that, if hospices are to develop services on the basis of clinical need, there is a cost. Funding is a huge issue, not least for the charitable sector. As noble Lords will be aware, the National Health Service contribution to charity-run hospices fell by some 6 per cent between 1996 and 2002 to a figure of 29 per cent—something I have never been able to understand or rationalise.
	That funding has now increased to an average of 34 per cent as a result of the extra moneys made available through the NHS cancer plan. That is welcome, albeit it is still less than the 1996 average. Of course, it is not enough. Again, the emphasis appears to be on cancers rather than on overall clinical need.
	I, too, was delighted at my party's manifesto pledge at the recent general election about the intention to double expenditure for palliative care. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell the House how much is presently spent on palliative care and whether the Government intend to double that figure in the lifetime of the present Parliament, or is it intended to gear additional expenditure in the timeframes in the National Health Service framework on long-term conditions?
	While I welcome the new National Health Service framework and the fact that most of the 10 quality requirements there is reference to special needs for people's rapidly progressing conditions, my fear is—and I hope the Minister can tell me that it is misplaced—that so much of the NHS appears to be aspirational and that local bodies set their own pace for change. Even the review process appears to be permissive. The document at page 8 says:
	"The Healthcare Commission and the Commission for Social Care Inspection may undertake schematic reviews of progress".
	That is such an important area that I am sure the whole House would want to know that the commissions will plan joint reviews in this area in the not too distant future.
	I accept that change for the better takes time, takes new funding and takes the necessary commitment, but the 10-year timeframe for implementation of the National Health Service framework is a timeframe much too far for persons with motor neurone disease. I again hope that the Minister can say emphasis might be given to an urgent plugging of the gaps in service provision for people with such rapidly progressing conditions.
	I dread to contemplate the problems faced by people with these rapidly progressing neurological conditions, as well as for their families and informal carers where there is no access to a specialist team, where palliative care units do not provide for them for respite or terminal care and where healthcare professionals and local services are not geared to deal with motor neurone disease. I have said before in your Lordships' House and I will say it again—it is hardly an acceptable situation in a developed country.
	I understand that motor neurone disease kills more people in the UK than HIV/AIDS, but it does not register on the national consciousness in the same way, or indeed in any way at all. Moneys for research, education and care are minuscule by comparison. So much relies on the Motor Neurone Disease Association, which does a remarkable job.
	I conclude by referring again to the work of St Raphael's Hospice. As with all charitable hospices, it relieves a substantial part of the burden on the National Health Service. St Raphael's provides education and training for GPs and district nurses to ensure seamless provision of care and generally provide a partnership in palliative care with their NHS colleagues. That includes work on motor neurone disease. Dr Marie Joseph, the medical director and consultant in palliative medicine at St Raphael's and the staff there take great pride in striving for clinical excellence. However, like other hospices, they need more money from government and NHS sources if they are to maintain that good work safely, never mind extend the provision.
	The voluntary role is vitally important, but so too is the role of the state in providing an increase and equality of funding, as well as equality of access to all those who require palliative care irrespective of disease type. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other noble Lords in the debate, especially the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate. I again express my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for securing this important debate.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the debate but, as your Lordships know, my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate was due to make his maiden speech at this point. He is on his way here on foot from some distance. We cannot find out exactly how far away he is because the mobile phone is not working either because of the problems. I hope that he will arrive before long and, perhaps with the indulgence of your Lordships, might speak a little later in the debate than had been intended. I am afraid that we will have to work that out when we get there.

Lord Joffe: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on securing the debate on this important subject. In Swindon, where I live, I first chaired a private hospital, then the Swindon Health Authority, and then the Swindon Acute Care Trust. Never once in all the countless meetings that I attended over 13 years did I ever hear palliative care mentioned, let alone discussed. It was generally known that there was hospice provision in Swindon, but it was assumed that that was the responsibility of the voluntary sector. Admittedly that was some years ago, but it demonstrates how neglected by the NHS this critical area of service provision was, at least in our area, and I suspect in other areas as well. Even today, palliative care often tends to be a relatively neglected area in the NHS.
	Curiously, I owe my present knowledge of the outstanding work of the palliative care profession, in which I include the hospice movement, to my involvement with the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. In that regard, I should add that I am firmly in the camp of Professor Sir Graeme Catto, the chair of the General Medical Council. When he gave evidence to the Select Committee on that Bill, he saw no conflict between palliative care and physician-assisted dying.
	It also became clear from the evidence given to the Select Committee that palliative care is the solution for the overwhelming majority of terminally ill patients, although there are a relatively small but significant number of terminally ill patients who have strong personalities and a history of being in control of their lives, for whom palliative care is not the answer.
	As has been stated many times, the United Kingdom rightly has the reputation of being a world leader in palliative care. There can be no doubt that in the centres of excellence, the skills and experience of our palliative care practitioners are outstanding. However, as has already been mentioned, to jump to the conclusion that because of that all is well in palliative care would be inaccurate. Provision of palliative care throughout England is uneven, and research has shown that of the 535,000 people who died in England in 2003 the majority had no access to specialist palliative care and little choice over their place of death.
	Ninety-five per cent of admissions to hospice and specialist care in-patient units are for patients suffering from cancer, yet each year about 300,000 patients with life-threatening conditions other than cancer would benefit from palliative care but unfortunately are excluded from it, principally by reason of their diagnosis. As a result, many die a painful and undignified death, and some a terrible death.
	The key issue leading to the current unsatisfactory situation is surely one of resource, both for provision of palliative care services and training and development. Bearing in mind that the NHS annual budget is in the order of £69 billion, it is surely unacceptable that, according to an estimate by Marie Curie Cancer Care, to which I am indebted for its briefing, of the £450 million spent annually on hospice and specialist care services in England, only 35 per cent is contributed by the NHS.
	The question that arises is: why is there this lack of resource? After all, Sir Nigel Crisp, the chief executive of the NHS in 2003, stated that,
	"better care for the dying should become a touchstone for success in the modern NHS",
	and Labour's recent election manifesto included a commitment to double its investment into palliative care services. It is clear, therefore, that the Government recognise the importance of palliative care, but the question arises as to what they are doing about it. They have announced the introduction of a £12 million investment over three years, and a further £50 million for three years ring-fenced for developing palliative care services. However, in the context of the total expenditure by the NHS and the need for universal high quality palliative care for the 550,000 people who die each year, these additional amounts, adding up to £162 million over three years, are derisory.
	In the Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, Professor Richards, the highly regarded national cancer director at the Department of Health, was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, how long it was going to take to have equity and access to specialist palliative care for all terminally ill patients. His response was:
	"Although I think it is extremely welcome that the speciality is going to be growing over the next 10 years, and probably doubling in size, even then . . . I do not think that is possible. So I cannot give you a figure for when that will be the case".
	Professor Richards was saying that he was unable to predict when quality palliative care services would be universally available throughout England. He appeared to be suggesting that 10 years may not be sufficient time, and that it might even be a lot longer. I suggest that this is unacceptable.
	It follows that unless the Government take urgent and determined action, fully resourced, we will have to resign ourselves to a situation where, for the next 10 years at least, and probably for a great deal longer, many terminally ill patients will continue to have unacceptable deaths because appropriate palliative care is not available.
	From the inquiries I have made, the NHS does not even seem to have completed an assessment of need for universal quality palliative care services, so it is unable to quantify what the need is and what resources are required. This is clearly the essential first step that needs to be taken with a sense of urgency, which is not evident at the moment. The statistics that are available seem to relate largely to hospice care, and it is important to recognise that such care is only a part of palliative care. A needs assessment should include all the services required by the 535,000 who die each year.
	Bearing in mind the current vast deficit in palliative care services, there needs to be a large and urgent injection of additional resources into the palliative care sector to increase its availability to all—and, in some cases, its quality. Large sums are also necessary for training and development of doctors, nurses and other palliative care professionals. Consideration should be given to making such training mandatory for all practitioners, and should possibly be taken into account when developing the accreditation requirements of doctors and nurses.
	In conclusion, I ask the Minister what the Government's current plans are to address the unmet need and by when they aim for the NHS to provide universal, quality palliative care services?

Lord Newton of Braintree: My Lords, the House will have observed that my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate is now here, but he has indicated to me that before addressing the House he wishes to pause and recover from his fortitude in getting here. I welcome him, and congratulate him on that fortitude, and, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who I suspect also had some difficulty in getting here. At one point, when I got here, I was informed that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, was going to speak in the noble Baroness's place. I congratulate her both on her fortitude and on getting this very important debate.
	I have a couple of interests to declare, most obviously as chair of Help the Hospices, to which I shall refer on one or two occasions during the course of this speech. I am also the former chair of East Anglia's Children's Hospices, something upon which this debate has not focused so far. There are particular points about children's hospices, which I do not intend to rehearse today, but I hope that we will not forget their importance in the course of our discussions.
	My interest in this matter goes back quite a long way, long before I was chair of either of these bodies, to when I was a junior social security Minister in the early 1980s. My path crossed—probably the tactful way to put it—those of both Anne, Duchess of Norfolk, the founder of Help the Hospices, and Dame Cicely Saunders, who could almost be seen as the modern founder of the movement. As a result of the experiences I had and, frankly, the lobbying I experienced, I spent some time manoeuvring within a particular part of the social security system to direct more money to the support of hospice care. My track record is therefore a bit longer than I might have indicated.
	Help the Hospices has funded and supported hospice education for a long while. In the past five years, however, it has greatly expanded the support it offers to information services, in grant aid, in raising funds for local hospices, and in giving voice to the views of the more than 180 local charities which provide the majority of hospice care in the UK, as has been made clear in some of the earlier speeches.
	Our ability to grow in this dynamic way has been greatly facilitated over the past few years by the active fundraising support of Lloyds TSB, Halifax Bank of Scotland, Tesco and the Flora London Marathon. I say this to the Minister because I think it is a good indication, both direct and indirect, of the level of public interest and support in this area. Organisations of those kinds give their support largely on the basis of what they think their staff would like them to do, and the interests that their staff have. That has not only been a help to us, but is a clear sign of the public support for the movement and the aims of palliative care.
	I do not have any difficultly in expressing support for the Government's agendas on extending the availability of palliative care to people with illnesses other than cancer—I warmly endorse the speech of the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, in that particular respect—and in enabling people to die at home if that is their choice. Some of the research, however, suggests that something like a quarter of people would actually prefer to die in a hospice. I hope we shall bear that in mind, too.
	The Government's focus on those matters is very welcome but the role of hospices in progressing those agendas should be considered more than sometimes seems to have been done. For example, if we are not to discriminate on grounds of disease, we must understand not only the general palliative care needs of people with other illnesses but also how far they could benefit from hospice care, whether in its current form or a modified form. Help the Hospices is currently supporting a number of pilot projects in local hospices aiming to extend services beyond cancer. Those will be evaluated, and we will be keen to share the results with the department.
	There is perhaps a failure to appreciate that beyond the traditional image of hospices as "in-patient units", to use a not entirely appropriate phrase, a much greater range of services is now provided, some of which now enable people to die at home if that is their preference. That care is provided through services such as hospice at home programmes, advisory home care and respite care provided in day centres and in-patient units. We all wish to see those services continue to grow.
	Further to some noble Lords' earlier remarks, I should like to test the Minister on the following point. Given the role of hospices in taking forward the Government's agendas, it seems important that government should work closely with the hospice movement in its various forms in taking forward work on end-of-life care. As I sense the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, felt in referring to partnerships, I believe that there would be merit in the Minister or his colleagues being willing to meet representatives of the hospice movement specifically to discuss how hospices can help to further the end-of- life-care agenda. We at Help the Hospices are certainly very keen to do that.
	I can hardly end without making some reference to funding, which inevitably has been a recurrent theme today. Many figures have been given, including those showing the decline that appears to have taken place in the proportion of NHS contribution to adult hospices run by local charities between 1996–97 and 2001–02, and also those on what must be acknowledged was a fairly significant recovery following the extra money made available through the NHS Cancer Plan. There has also been much reference to the promise made in the last Labour manifesto, which we all welcome. However, we have a little difficulty with it because, as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, said, none of us is sure precisely how much is being spent on palliative care at the moment—there appears not to be an official estimate—so it is difficult to know what is meant by doubling the expenditure. It might help if the Minister could shed light on that.
	Crucially, in the light of the Government's undoubted commitment to increased expenditure, we need some assurances that the funding will get through. Local hospices are certainly concerned about whether it will be the priority that it must be for primary care trusts if the money is to find its way to what we would regard as the right places. I hope that the Minister can confirm that the costs of implementing payment by results for specialist palliative care will be a first call on the additional funds promised in the recent Labour manifesto.
	I conclude by saying that the concern about funding is familiar to anyone who has done a ministerial job of the kind that I have done and the Minister is doing. But there is a danger that, if we cannot translate warm words into cash reaching the ground, we shall not make the progress that will be universally supported in the House and there is a risk at least that we shall find ourselves going backwards. I hope that the Minister can be both positive and—dare I say?—pretty specific.

Lord Hayhoe: My Lords, it appears that the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, is not with us; I had not realised that. She, too, may be struggling to get here. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for raising the matter, in which I have previously had particular involvement—although not in recent times. I am also delighted that my old colleague, my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell, has managed to get here, and look forward to hearing him speak. I gather that he will probably speak after my noble friend Lady Rawlings. We are not doing too badly, bearing in mind the absolute horrors of public transport in London today.
	I should declare an interest. I was president of Help the Hospices from 1992 to 1998. Among the many dedicated, devoted and caring people whom one met in the hospice movement at that time, two stand out with enormous prominence and clarity. The first was, of course, Dame Cicely Saunders, who has been referred to before. She was a quite remarkable lady who founded the first modern research and teaching hospice in 1967. I understand that at present she is not very well. Therefore, it would not be inappropriate for a message to go forth from this debate, from all sides of the House, wishing her well and thanking her most warmly for the marvellous work that she has done over the years.
	Looking at some of her articles, I came across a definition of palliative care which she and a small group produced some years ago. She said,
	"Palliative care starts from the understanding that each human being is a person, a single bodily and spiritual whole, and that the proper response to a person is respect. Respect means being so open to each man, woman and child, not as simply an isolated individual, but as someone with a story and a culture, with beliefs and relationships, that we give them the value that is uniquely theirs".
	I know some not well informed people often think of the hospice movement as being basically a Christian movement. Of course, it is not in any sense. One should remember that Muslims, Buddhists, humanists are all embraced within the work of hospices.
	The other person is someone referred to by my noble friend Lord Newton, Anne, Duchess of Norfolk, who, as he said, founded Help the Hospices in 1984. She is coming up to an anniversary. I would not say she is coming of age—in my day one came of age at 21, but now it is rather earlier—but it is an important anniversary. She is a very remarkable person. She brings her unique personality to fund raising. She does not to bully, but she cajoles and persuades all kinds of people to support the work of Help the Hospices for which we are all the better.
	Both of those wonderful women have encouraged many others in what they are doing. We have to remember that hospices, although an important part of palliative care, are not the whole of it by any means. I certainly do not have the expertise to talk of the other aspects of palliative care. The briefing that I have received shows the shortage of hospice provision is a result of continual under-funding through the sector as a whole. The representatives of the Marie Curie Cancer Care and Help the Hospices in their briefing have both underlined that fact. Of course, there has been a very widespread welcome to the pledge in the Labour Party manifesto of the doubling of the investment over the coming years. The difficulty is that it does not say what the investment to be doubled is and it does not say for how many years it will be doubled. Therefore, I echo very strongly what my noble friend Lord Newton said to the Minister. Can he spell it out in greater detail? I confess that 30 years ago I had a hand in drafting the manifesto for my party and I know that the words are chosen with infinite care to create impressions, though not necessarily clear pledges. I therefore very much hope that the Minister, whom we all respect for his support and knowledge in these areas, may be able to help us, if not today, at least in the future by producing a paper that would go some way to ensuring that the expectations held for greater support in the whole area of palliative care are not disappointed.
	I want to refer to two other matters. The first of them, which was also mentioned by my noble friend Lord Newton, is children's hospices. One has opened in my old parliamentary constituency and I have noticed that it does not quite make clear the area that it serves. It appears to serve more than one primary care trust and not to get very much from any of them. I wonder whether the Minister can elaborate on why children's hospices generally get roughly 5 per cent of their costs through official funding, whereas the figure for adult hospices is over 30 per cent.
	Secondly, I refer to training. Recommendation 18 of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health made the very important point that there should be more training for all staff involved in and associated with palliative care. Of course, that is a matter for the royal colleges and the GMC. However, as was said in their response to that Select Committee's report, the Government are encouraging those bodies to do better, and I should be grateful to hear what exactly is to happen in that regard.
	I conclude by sincerely acknowledging the very considerable help that the Government have given in the field of palliative care. As a Minister once responsible for such matters, I can say that, as ever, one always wants more and that more is really needed. I therefore hope that this debate will go some way to encouraging the Government to provide that extra help.

Lord Patel: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Finlay of Llandaff for securing this debate. I am pleased that she made it to the Chamber despite the difficulties. I am also grateful to the many organisations and individuals who have provided me with information. Much of my speech draws on their briefs.
	I start with what I think are the key challenges for delivering high quality palliative care. I hope that the noble Lord will agree with me that they are important challenges. However, he will be relieved to hear that not all of them focus on more money as being the only solution.
	First among the many challenges is that of delivering palliative care not only to mostly elderly patients suffering from cancer but also to those with chronic and progressive illnesses, to which I shall return. Secondly, there is the challenge of delivering palliative care in multiple care settings. More resource will be necessary, but there also needs to be more effective inter-agency working and better co-ordinated palliative care education, with national quality control, to ensure more effective workforce plans. Another challenge is that of not only recognising the differing needs for the palliative care of children, young people and ethnic minorities, as has already been mentioned, but the need to develop the kind of service structure that delivers it. There is also a need for raising public awareness and expectations of what palliative care can deliver. Often the expectations are not high enough.
	Let me expand on some of those challenges. People with chronic disease and progressive illness have the same needs as those suffering from cancer. They have a much diminished quality of life and a shorter lifespan. Such people have an equal right to palliative care, but their needs are not met, as dramatically demonstrated in a television documentary last year, which some of your Lordships may remember.
	The noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, has already referred to some people with motor neurone disease being unable to get palliative care. I believe that only 39 per cent of those with the disease are able to get satisfactory care.
	Why do I say that palliative care has to be delivered in a multiplicity of settings? The role of acute hospitals is changing and this will lead to a reduction in acute care and the number of beds. Modern approaches to diagnosis, pre-admission and discharge planning will change the way in which care is delivered. The role of care homes and community hospitals will also change. More palliative care in future will have to be delivered in a multiplicity of settings, with clear implications for the training of all health professionals who provide palliative care.
	Workforce planning has already been referred to by many noble Lords. I will not expand on it further except to say that just providing additional money will not solve the problem. It requires a little more long-term planning.
	There is a need also for more effective inter-agency working. Many impediments to effective palliative care lie at the boundaries between social work, local authorities, hospices et cetera, as well as around partnerships, care philosophy and organisational ethos. There is also the challenge of the better co-ordination of education in palliative care for all health professionals, with a national overview.
	My noble friend Lady Finlay and others have already spoken about the differing needs of children and young people in respect of palliative care. I shall speak briefly about the needs of the ethnic minorities. To die with dignity is one of the most fundamental of all human rights, but notions of what is a good death vary between cultures. In ethnically and religiously diverse Britain, I hope that the need for high-quality care at the end of life for all will be recognised. But before that happens, some fundamental changes will be required, both in the provision of palliative care and the rate of progress in introducing education in trans-cultural medicine to medical and nursing curricula.
	Currently, only a tiny percentage of people from ethnic minorities has access to services for the terminally ill. For a variety of reasons, patients from ethnic minorities are often dying at a young age from diseases not related to cancers. There is a false belief among some people that hospices, with their Christian roots, cater only for people from that faith. There is a lack of understanding on the part of health professionals of the death rites of different cultures. For instance, why is it that a middle-aged Muslim daughter insists on maintaining a day-and-night vigil of her dying mother? Or why is it that the Hindu parents of a dying child wish the child to be as close to the floor as possible? The development of palliative care services that cater for all cultures and the training of professionals to understand them are key issues. More than 65 medical schools in the United States of America now offer modules in spirituality and health. These and other good practices in the education of health professionals need to be introduced in the United Kingdom.
	These are some of the challenges that need to be addressed. If we accept that palliative care services are not as well developed as they should be, and that they should be developed to deliver care to all who need it to a standard that they deserve, we have an opportunity to shape and develop these services. I hope that the Minister will agree that the starting point could be the palliative care needs assessment report by the research and development department of the Department of Health—a report that is all-encompassing and addresses all of these issues, including the resources required.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for securing this important debate and I look forward to the maiden speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate.
	I am acutely aware that palliative care in this country is under-supported. For every £50 spent in the United Kingdom on research on cancer, less than one penny is spent on end-of-life or palliative care. The United States spends only 0.9 per cent of its cancer research budget on palliative care, but even that low figure is proportionately four times higher than that of the United Kingdom. The result of that under-investment is worrying. There is now reliable evidence from studies at King's College, London—here I must declare an interest as Chairman of Council—that well over half those people affected by terminal illness would want to die at home. Sadly, for most, that is not possible. Despite all government efforts, cancer home deaths in the UK are still falling—from 27 per cent in 1994 to 22 per cent in 2001.
	Palliative care support for those suffering from illnesses other than cancer is even more stretched. About 5 per cent of patients who benefit from some sort of palliative care service have diseases other than cancer, despite the fact that 75 per cent of people die from conditions other than cancer. Some groups, especially older people and those from ethnic minority communities, are especially vulnerable to missing out on the support of local palliative care services.
	Despite that, Britain should be proud of its world-leading position on the development of palliative care. The modern concept of hospice began here with the work of Dame Cicely Saunders and others, as we have heard from several noble Lords. I add my thoughts for her to those of my noble friend Lord Hayhoe. That has now spread to more than 100 countries.
	As society ages, the nature of illness changes. So, too, must our understanding and expectation of palliative care. Infectious and congenital diseases are more effectively treated and people live longer. Healthcare is becoming increasingly concerned with chronic disease at the end of life, rather than acute illness. Those trends are well known, but still not enough is being done to identify the best way to relieve many symptoms, such as intractable pain, breathlessness, depression and profound weakness, that affect more than two-thirds of people in the last year of their life.
	I am proud to say that, despite the limited investment, significant progress has been made in those areas, not least at King's College, London, where our department of palliative care led by Professor Irene Higginson has been a pioneer in research, teaching and care. However, that work has been held back by a national lack of focus on palliative care. For that reason, we have undertaken to create an institute of palliative care, the first in the world, bringing together like- minded organisations such as the Cicely Saunders Foundation, King's College Hospital, the Wolfson Foundation, the Weston Foundation and Macmillan Cancer Relief, to create the Cicely Saunders Institute.
	Unique in the world, that physical institute will be devoted to improving the way that people are cared for, making a decent quality and dignity of life attainable even at the end of life. It is encouraging that we have been able to secure the funds needed for that project purely from private sources.
	I speak in this debate on a subject that is not normally mine—although I admit that my first job was as a nurse. I do so to support the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in hoping that we can put palliative care higher up the agenda.
	We have an obligation to ensure that patients and their families have access to the very best care and support at one of the most frightening times in their lives. I urge the Government to enhance their commitment to palliative care by increasing the proportion of the cancer research budget spent on it to at least 10p in every £50 rather than the 1p I mentioned at the beginning of my few words—and correspondingly across other conditions—enabling more people to receive vital support when they most need it.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: My Lords, I start with a sincere apology to your Lordships for not being in my place at the beginning of the debate; I was walking across London. I was very sorry to miss the speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, whom I congratulate most warmly on introducing the debate, and the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie. None the less, it is a great honour to be a Member of your Lordships' House and I am delighted to have the opportunity to make my maiden speech on the very important subject of palliative care.
	Like many Members of your Lordships' House, I have been a strong supporter of the hospice movement ever since I came into Parliament—and, indeed, shortly before. I have been a supporter of St Frances Hospice in Berkhamsted, then for many years of St John's Hospice in Moggerhanger and currently of the Grove House Hospice in St Albans.
	Any insights that I may have are not my own but are due to the fact that I was lucky enough to marry into a medical family. Under the inspiration of my father-in-law, the late Professor Charles Fletcher—a great expert on emphysema, which so injures old people—both our elder children are doctors in the NHS. Our elder daughter is a registrar in care of the elderly in Southmead Hospital in Bristol and our son and his wife are both general practitioners in south-east London. So if there is any merit in this speech, it comes not from me.
	The hospice movement is one of the shining constellations in the firmament of the voluntary and charitable sectors. All governments are wise to cherish it and to work with it closely. As many noble Lords have said, it has developed a great deal over the past 30 years.
	The first important development, which I strongly encourage, is that in addition to the wonderful work that it does in relation to cancer—both for in-patient residents in the hospices themselves and out in the community—it now treats other conditions that so often afflict those in the later stages of their lives. I refer particularly to heart failure, which can affect people for many years, angina, chronic emphysema and other conditions which obstruct patients' airways. In both these areas the medical profession is rightly seeking to work out how best to give palliative care to those who may never get better but who can none the less, with proper help, enjoy a valuable quality of life—largely at home—for whatever period is left to them.
	As I understand it, it tends to be the very frail and the very old who are let down by our system, and those who are fading often find themselves forced to fade in hospital for lack of an adequate structure to give help at home.
	Nursing care at home is immensely valuable. Families can be very good at caring for their loved ones. Indeed, old and frail people can be very good at caring for themselves at home if they can have, in particular, the advantage of three-times-a-day help, but they often have to wait many weeks, and perhaps months, before such help can be provided—if, indeed, it can be provided at all. Great efforts are rightly made to tie in the work of the National Health Service with local authority social services and, when available, the work of the hospices, both residential and out in the community. This is hugely to be encouraged.
	An extra problem to be overcome is the fact that general practitioners, who are wonderful and often find the greatest satisfaction in helping their long-term patients in the last years of their lives, cannot necessarily be present out of hours—the out of hours service has to cope—and the systems of the hospice service and the NHS have to meet that particular problem.
	St Christopher's Hospice in south-east London was one of the earliest hospices, started by Dame Cicely Saunders herself. It is once again showing the way by providing an excellent palliative care system for elderly patients in their own homes. They are looked after by the hospice team during the day and those hospices work closely with district nurses. In doing so, importantly, they are also able to provide cover by night.
	However, the work is expensive. It is not, as I understand it—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—at present supported by any extra funding from the NHS and the continuation of that service is under great pressure.
	For all their wonderful work, once the need for medical intervention to a patient has ceased and the patient is stable but eventually dying, the hospital is not the ideal place to be. The nurses are inevitably busy. When the family are around the bed, it is all too likely that the patient in the next bed may need to use the commode or another confused patient may be wandering in the ward. Side rooms are at a premium and may be needed for a patient with an infection, so as an elderly patient one is lucky to get a side room.
	I turn to costs. The costs of nursing care at home at its most intense are probably close to hospital costs, but that usually takes place for only a short period and a hospital bed is freed up. On a cost-benefit analysis, the benefits to a patient and the family are huge compared with the misery that can be suffered when one has to die in hospital, wonderful though the hospital services are.
	The overall costs of hospice and specialist palliative care services are estimated to total some £450 million, of which 35 per cent is contributed by the NHS. One hundred and seventy million pounds is a modest figure compared to the total NHS spending today of around £60 billion. Professor David Taylor of the School of Pharmacy at the University of London estimates that every pound invested in hospice and home care can release some £2 worth of hospital services.
	So may the message go forth from this debate that this work by hospices of caring for the very old and the very frail in their own homes deserves the Government's strongest support. It is not only excellent value for the NHS, above all, at a critical point in our lives; it is of enormous benefit to all our fellow citizens.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, it is a great privilege for me to congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, on his splendid maiden speech. I expected him, with his background as a former Solicitor-General and Attorney-General to speak with immense clarity and confidence, but I did not know that he was also going to speak in such a moving way. It was particularly moving for me because he emphasised so much the plight of very old and frail people. The noble and learned Lord will make an important contribution to this House. We will all be aware of the huge experience and the contribution he will make to all our deliberations. I wish him well and congratulate him again.
	I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for having secured this debate, which is critically important. I congratulate the other speakers, because it is obvious that all of us are proud of the UK's record. We have a superb record of palliative care and world leadership in the hospice movement, which has spread to many countries all around the world. We know that people who are dying do not just need general care; they need personal, humane, gentle, loving care, right up and until they take their last breath. We also know that, unfortunately, with the best will in the world, the tight resources of the NHS mean that does not always happen. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that sometimes that is because we do not get the integration of health and social care right. When people are suffering form a terminal illness, it is hard to separate one need from another. That is where our systems fall down sadly for many people.
	I was angered when I read an article in the Guardian on 1 July which said that,
	"some people still suffer a death which is medieval in its pain and distress".
	That is absolutely unacceptable in a country such as ours that has such high standards in its health and social care. The Guardian article also said that that happens despite the huge advances in drugs and technological systems for care over the past 30 or 40 years.
	This debate is so important because we need to talk more openly about dying and the process of dying. It is something that we will all face, and have already faced with our friends and families. So often, it is a taboo subject; one of the last taboo subjects. They are really dangerous subjects, because they often have dreadful results because of being taboo, so we have a result of poor treatment and bad care that remains hidden from the scrutiny that people deserve and the standards that should be available to everyone to protect us all.
	Many people are ignorant, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has emphasised, people from ethnic minorities and older people from the general population. People are sometimes denied the excellent palliative care or hospice care that could be available to them if they knew how to make it available. We know that most people want to die at home because they believe that they will get more personal and loving care there than in hospital. Yet the majority of all people die in hospital. We must ask why that is and why only a minority benefit from hospice care or palliative care.
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patel, that hospice-type care must be available in multiple settings today. To spend your last days in a hospital ward is often to die badly. We have heard so many horror stories of neglect. We have heard of discrimination on the grounds of age. We have heard of very inappropriate settings and lack of privacy, among other problems. Care in a hospital could and should be as good as that in a hospice. One area of all general hospitals could be made into a hospice environment. After all, we have managed to ensure that most maternity units in the NHS incorporate an area that is gentle and friendly, which is a suitable environment, so crucial for when a child is born. When someone is dying is no less significant an event. We should have the same standards of environment suitable for that event too.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, since the Shipman case there is a big problem, which has been reported in a medics' survey recently, that doctors are more nervous and less willing to prescribe adequate pain relief to dying people since that tragedy. For some we know that pain relief is just not possible. Most of us want to be in control of pain at the end of our lives. One of the reasons why I supported the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, on assisted dying is partly because the safeguards built into it mean that palliative care must be delivered to anyone in that position. Therefore, we would have to have more palliative care available, and that must be a good thing. You cannot offer a service unless it exists. So, in my view, the amount of palliative care available has to increase.
	I strongly support the efforts of Marie Curie Cancer Care and other organisations that are trying to ensure that everybody who wants to die at home can do so. There are gross inequalities in the distribution of palliative and hospice care. Although I congratulate the Government on their investment in this type of care, all noble Lords have outlined that it is not enough, and we need more resources if we are to get it right.
	There also has to be a big cultural shift in attitude within the Department of Health and the NHS, especially about older people who often suffer from multiple conditions—not always cancer. We know that older people with cancer are far less likely to die in a hospice. The figure is 8.5 per cent of those who are 85 or over, compared with 20 per cent of all cancer deaths. We know that older people with dementia do not usually benefit from palliative care at all because it is not recognised as a terminal illness, although, of course, it is in its later stages. Even for those dying of cancer, NICE has concluded that the resources are inadequate, so there is a big demand.
	My first experience of somebody close to me dying was a very young woman with a husband and two young children. Tragic though it was, her death was beautiful. Her experience and that of others in the same position should be the standard for us all, regardless of age, ethnicity, disability or cause of death. Dying is a part of our lives.

Lord Rea: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, should be congratulated on choosing a subject that will become increasingly important over the years. Not only are more of us surviving into old age because the diseases that used to polish us off before we reached three score years and ten are now better prevented and treated, but there will be a bulge of ageing people when the post-war baby boomers reach 80 or so around 2020 to 2030.
	Terminal care, as many noble Lords have said, is appropriate not only for patients with cancer, but for many medium to long-term illnesses that lead inevitably to death, such as organ failure and some forms of dementia. Motor neurone disease is a distressing condition, as my noble friend Lord MacKenzie pointed out, which often needs palliative care towards the end.
	Some 60 per cent of patients say that they would prefer to die at home, and another 20 per cent would prefer a hospice. Sadly, only 18 per cent of deaths happen at home and 4 per cent in hospices. A higher proportion of cancer patients die in hospices—20 per cent, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has just said.
	As a doctor working in the community in north London, I was privileged to have the help of outreach teams from two hospitals—University College and the Royal Free—caring for dying patients at home. They were staffed round the clock by Macmillan-trained nurses, backed by a consultant in palliative care, with links to a famous hospice, Eden Hall.
	It was a Rolls-Royce service that was greatly appreciated by patients, families and GPs alike. But for some time to come, it is not a model that can be replicated all over the country. There are not enough specialists or palliative care nurses.
	However, several projects are running, which make use of existing National Health Service staff by training and helping to provide effective and satisfying palliative care, about which I shall speak more later if time permits.
	In a completely different setting, last year in rural west Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria I was able to see a community-based terminal care scheme in operation. It was operated by the NGO, ICROSS, which is run by a dynamic Anglo-Irishman called Mike Meegan. Care workers were recruited from literate, intelligent, but otherwise untrained, members of the local population. They were given several weeks' training for the specific task of caring for AIDS victims dying in their own homes. They had links with the local district hospital, which admitted patients to initiate treatment for opportunistic infections, but, once they were stabilised, continuing care took place in the community.
	The benefits of the scheme were remarkable. First and foremost, the patients were hugely relieved to have a carer. A load of anxiety was shed and they became spiritually calmer. If further opportunistic infection occurred, they had ready access to the local hospital. One result of the scheme was that only 50 per cent of the hospital's beds were occupied by AIDS patients, instead of 90 per cent before the community-based care scheme started.
	In the much more sophisticated context of the UK, the same principles can be, and in many cases are being, applied to end-of-life care in the community. It is very good news that the Department of Health has recognised that demographic and healthcare trends, quite apart from patients' wishes, require expanded palliative care services.
	I am afraid that time does not allow me to give a list of all the projects and guidelines on good end-of-life care that have been initiated and supported by the Department of Health, which often contributes to or collaborates with the voluntary sector. Some of these schemes have been mentioned by noble Lords in their speeches. I could recite a list of them, but there is no time, so I shall refrain.
	However, I am particularly impressed by the Gold Standard Framework, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness. It is based in east Birmingham and is led by a general practitioner, Dr Keri Thomas, who has drawn up, and enthusiastically promotes, a detailed scheme that could be applied to most GP practices to improve the quality of their end-of-life care. An initial evaluation of the scheme is very positive.
	I think that I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, when I say that home-based care is not appropriate for everyone in the end stages of their illness, however much they would like it. Sometimes symptoms are so severe that they need institution-based care, for example, severe respiratory difficulties, double incontinence, or intractable nausea and vomiting. Such problems may arise in patients having home-based care and for them there should still be a speedy pre-arranged route into nearby institutional care.
	That need not be an acute hospital. Hospices can cope with most severe symptoms, but there are simply not enough of them and they are unequally distributed, as the noble Baroness showed. A temporary solution is for certain wards or parts of a hospital complex to be dedicated to providing palliative care—as the noble Baroness described happening in Cardiff—if hospital staff can be persuaded to switch from a radical curative treatment-based outlook to a more gentle, caring outlook. It is sometimes hard for clinicians to stop treatment and to accept that the aim is to assist dying, rather than to prolong life.
	I hope very much that my noble friend will be able to say that there will always be funds available to make Sir Nigel Crisp's aspiration a success. Two years ago, he said:
	"Better care for the dying should become a touchstone for success in modernising the National Health Service".
	It is a very good investment as, as other noble Lords have said, it will relive pressure on acute hospitals, and everyone agrees that palliative care ensures a dignified and peaceful end to people's lives.

Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, we are indeed indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for securing this debate and for introducing it so very ably.
	In taking part I declare this interest: in the late 1980s I was responsible for much of the research and planning that led to the establishment of St Mary's Hospice, Ulverston in south Cumbria. I have had continuous involvement with it ever since and I am its current chairman. Nothing I have ever done has made more demands on my time and energy; at intervals nothing has given me greater anxiety and precisely nothing has given me such a sense of fulfilment.
	I believe that the development of the independent hospice movement in Britain represents perhaps the greatest change for social good which has occurred in my lifetime. I base this rather extravagant sounding claim not entirely on what hospices have achieved but on what they might yet achieve if they are allowed the necessary freedom and space in which to develop.
	Central to what I have to say this afternoon—it is a slightly different emphasis from other speakers—is that if we lose our independence, then to all intents and purposes the hospice movement that people have come to know and value will be destroyed. I know with what intensity it is valued by people, as I have seen at first hand the lengths people go to both in financial and voluntary terms to support their local hospice.
	I am not alone in noticing that attractive, popular and successful activity in the independent voluntary sector can give rise to public sector resentment. This resentment is especially evident if money is perceived to be flowing to areas which it does not control. At its Worst, frustrated public bodies use or misuse their considerable power to hinder and obstruct.
	Our hospice of St Mary's serves a population of 120,000 people. At today's prices the operation costs—not the fundraising costs—£1.7 million a year, which equates to £14 for every man, woman and child in the catchment area. That we have raised such sums is a huge tribute to our appeals team. In one of Britain's less rich areas it represents a generosity of spirit that compares extremely well with any other part of the United Kingdom. However, I am not confident that that is sustainable. We are felt by some to be asking too much and impacting too heavily on the work of other important local charities.
	Against a government target of 50 per cent grant aid, and figures I have heard of 30 per cent, we get 10 per cent grant aid. Historically that has been all we have ever had. I do not know of any other hospice that gets less. I think it was nearly four years ago that the famous £50 million hospice package was first announced on the steps of our very own hospice, St Mary's, by Mr John Hutton MP with much press fanfare. Out of that extremely useful pot we have so far received not a single penny for core funding. Our local primary care trust has turned down all requests for support from that source and is only now offering modest financial packages for non-core services that we neither need nor want, and then with a raft of strings attached.
	The Minister will say, with some reason, that funding is a matter between the PCT and ourselves. I merely say that I hope it is a matter of concern to him that a policy so publicly announced by his department should have so signally failed in terms of outcome. The truth is, of course, that the local PCT is broke and is also determined to control us by any means open to it.
	The financial plight of primary care trusts certainly does not prevent them servicing a huge plethora of committees and working groups. We have to attend in person not one or five or 10 but 12 such committees and groups to retrieve the miserable 10 per cent funding to which I referred.
	In regulatory terms the Healthcare Commission is hugely intrusive. The inspecting team spends two days in our filing cabinets and only 20 minutes on the ward and in day care. Our staff simply cannot understand what the purpose of such inspections is.
	We measure PCT forms to be filled in by weight; one of the latest of those forms had us defending our performance in the last quarter on why we had not cured any of our patients. We estimate the staff costs of processing the paperwork alone generated by the PCT amounts to £18,000 a year. This absurd second-guessing does not happen with other hospices that I know of. I understand that the Government's admirable Compact Plus scheme, requiring public sector bodies to be more accommodating to the independent sector, has been adopted in other areas ahead of the official starting date. Perhaps the Minister will have something reassuring to say in that respect.
	The universal and holistic way in which we in the independent sector understand and practise palliative care is something the NHS cannot hope to match, either in quality or in terms of cost. It is not designed to do so.
	We have such qualities in our hospice movement, as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, said. He spoke of the importance for patients of the feeling of safety. The other day I was talking to the young and talented chef at our hospice, and she was saying very movingly what a challenge it was, when any patient came in, to find out in the last days of their life, not only what they could eat, but to help them try and get some pleasure from eating it. Little details like that make such a difference.
	I come now to a suggested way forward for funding. Since virtually all our patients are referred to us by the NHS, and since we care for them without charge, is there not a simple and fair formula for getting public sector finance into our hospices? Reflecting on various options that have been talked about lately, either we could be paid a sum for each patient that is referred to us—and remember how much money we are saving the taxpayer—or the public sector referrer might choose to buy a proportion of our beds and services annually.
	A healthy and constructive partnership would result from such a course, and it would lead to a much lighter touch in terms of regulation. After all, the referrers will always have the choice of using or not using our services. The other judges and arbiters of our standards of care are the public. I see nothing wrong with that; indeed, I would see only good coming of their being rather more carefully listened to.
	Finally, it seems likely that cancer will have ceased in 10 years' time to be the major life-threatening disease it is today. In our catchment area, because of the asbestos-related cancers from the former shipbuilding industry, we will sadly have those patients for rather longer. As has been said so eloquently and so importantly in this debate, there are other cruel diseases and tragic human conditions where our model of care will be ideally suited to people's needs. We would like to reposition ourselves over the next few years to meet such a challenge. It is a model that works and, beyond all doubt, that people want.
	When the Minister comes to reply, I would welcome his reaction to my suggested funding methodology. In the important area of our longer-term development, perhaps he will be kind enough to reflect on what I have said, and write to me in due course. As I have illustrated, we have had rather a poor deal at the hands of his department. Rather than dwell on that, however, I would like to see a future partnership that respects our independence in the cause of maintaining and developing excellence in palliative care. At the moment a threat hangs over the hospice movement, and I should like to see it removed.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving your Lordships the opportunity to discuss this important and emotionally moving subject.
	My noble friend Lady Finlay is a professor of palliative care, and is an expert. I speak from having had the honour of being the designated person to take decisions on behalf of someone dying of HIV/AIDS. I am also president of the local branch of the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and I have a husband with multiple disabling conditions, complicated by diabetes.
	Last year my husband had an enormous abscess on his lower gut, and spent three weeks in intensive care. I know only too well that one has to take one day at a time, and hope is of the utmost importance in these times. I agree with my noble friend that it is so important that real choice and personalised care is provided to all people facing the end of their lives. Palliative care is an approach to care that encompasses medical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects. It includes terminal care and, when possible, rehabilitation.
	For a moment, I would like to dwell on the spiritual aspects which mean so much to some people, especially around this time. I, myself, as a carer, get a great resource from the words of Pope John Paul II. He said:
	"Human life is a precious gift to be loved and defended in each of its stages. The Commandment 'You shall not kill', always requires respecting and promoting human life, from its beginning to its natural end. It is a command that applies even in the presence of illness and when physical weakness reduces the person's ability to be self-reliant".
	When I heard that a hospital had decided to remove its crucifix from the hospital chapel and a Maltese lady was distraught, I could understand her feelings. Sometimes people need the chapels to pray in or just to meditate in sometimes, especially around the difficult time of coming to terms with terminal illness or death.
	Of course we should respect everybody's faiths and beliefs, but it is wrong to be negative and take away such things as crucifixes, which can give help and comfort; surely, one should have chapels for Christian faiths to share and another room for the use of non-Christians. I believe that is what happens here in Parliament and it must be the correct course to take.
	The Motor Neurone Disease Association believes that specialist palliative care should be available to anyone with MND in a setting and at a time of his or her choice. Many people with MND are unable to access the palliative care services they require. In a survey carried out by the association in 2005, only 39 per cent of people with MND had been referred to specialist palliative care services. There are unacceptable geographical variations in the quality of service provision. That can have a negative impact on the quality of life of people with MND and their families.
	All people in need of palliative care, whatever the condition, should have a quick service to occupational therapists and the correct equipment, such as wheelchairs, hoists, slings, special mattresses to prevent pressure sores and so on. The wheelchair service needs updating and upgrading, as does the suitable equipment for people in hospital.
	On people with a swallowing problem, I discovered that adults do not have access to much-needed speech therapists, who can give vital advice in their lives, if they live in the communities of north Yorkshire. A child can get the service, but an adult has to wait a long time for an appointment in hospital. With so much emphasis on primary healthcare, I ask the Minister if he can encourage a better, quicker service for all who need it in hospital, hospice or at home, when they are in this condition.
	Hospices have historically been funded by cancer charities, so services have focused on people with malignant disease. I hope your Lordships agree that it is important that other service users, such as people with life-limiting non-malignant conditions, are given equal treatment. Palliative care should be determined by clinical need and not disease type. But if a person's wish is to remain at home, all efforts should be made to make that possible.
	I hope that the National Health Service framework for long-term conditions will help to co-ordinate and promote better services for those people needing palliative care. I, too, would like to congratulate the noble and learned Lord, who has, with all his efforts crossing London on this day, made a splendid maiden speech.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am grateful to the House for its indulgence in allowing me to speak during the gap. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for initiating this valuable debate. I declare an interest as chairman of St John's Hospice in north London, which is one of the relatively few hospices that offers palliative care for three of the main life-threatening complaints—cancer, HIV/AIDS and, I am happy to reassure the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, motor neurone disease. I am also happy to reassure the noble Baroness that today the hospice has made available six emergency beds for St Mary's in the light of today's events.
	My message is simple; it has been the theme of the debate. Governments—this applies to this Administration and the previous one—have underfunded the hospice movement by at least 50 per cent. The figure of 35 per cent was mentioned by my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell in his excellent and informative maiden speech, and by the noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe. It means that the balance has to be funded through the good will of the public. I do not like to use the word "cynically", but the Government have cynically traded on that in the assurance that the shortfall will be made up.
	Furthermore, while other branches of the National Health Service have been given a 5 per cent uplift this year, the independent hospice movement has had to be content with 3 per cent. Why? In our case, we feel sensitive about that, because all our clientele come from the National Health Service through contracts with 11 primary care trusts across London.
	Our hospice is fortunate, in that it is part of the same charity and on the same site as the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, for which the hospice is its charitable objective. A large part of the hospice's establishment cost is picked up by the hospital. Other hospices that stand alone are less fortunate. If that underfunding continues, there is a continuing danger that the viability of some of them will be called into question.
	The hospice movement in London is overwhelmingly independent. I venture to suggest that hospices give huge support to the National Health Service in releasing acute hospital beds, providing high-quality palliative care and, as I have said, giving the National Health Service a service on the cheap, frankly. We are grateful for the money that the Government have made available to the hospice movement in recent years, but I urge the Minister and his right honourable friend the Secretary of State to revisit the problem.

Lord Slynn of Hadley: My Lords, I too ask the indulgence of the House to make a brief intervention. I am told that I can do so as long as I am finished by four o'clock; I hope to be finished by 3.59 if I try very hard.
	I have two points to make. Before I do so, I join in congratulating the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, on his marvellous maiden speech. He was my first pupil at the Bar. I tried hard not to take him—not because there was anything wrong with him, but because I did not think that I was adequate to take a pupil of such ability at that early stage in my career. His father insisted, and I am very glad that I took him as a pupil. I am not at all surprised that he showed in his speech today that the qualities that he began to show then have flourished and blossomed.
	As a member of the board of a hospice, and as one who has seen people in the last days of a terminal illness desperately needing what can be provided by the hospice movement, I realise how important the debate has been. I too congratulate and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, on and for raising the issue. It is important as a public discussion, and in terms of asking the Government to do more than they already generously do.
	My second point is to emphasise, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, stressed, that we are not talking only about cancer. People with many other diseases—for example, motor neurone disease, which increasingly seems to be a problem—also desperately need the help of the voluntary movement. As has already been stressed, the fact that it is voluntary should be emphasised in any debate of this kind.
	Tribute has been paid to Dame Cicely Saunders and I add the warmest tribute to her work. The most informative, moving and agreeable fund-raising dinner at which I ever spoke was in support of Dame Cicely's hospice and her movement. There are many other volunteers. Who, I ask rhetorically, could have done more to help the joint care home movement, of which I saw something as Prior of the Order of St John, or to help the Dame Cicely movement than Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra? She has given the greatest support in this area, beginning at the top and moving down, as have many others.
	I apologise for not having put my name down to speak in this debate. I thank your Lordships for giving me two-and-a-half minutes in which to contribute, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Llandaff, on her speech.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and congratulate her on initiating this debate. I also congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, on his maiden speech. I have admired him from afar for many years. I hope that we shall hear him on many occasions, including on this subject, about which he is so knowledgeable.
	Like everyone who has spoken, I declare a variety of interests. I am vice-president of the North London Hospice, I have written books on the subject of palliative care for those of different faiths, and I have a general involvement in the hospice movement. Formerly, I chaired an NHS trust that provided palliative care, and I was chief executive of the King's Fund. I shall not list any more.
	It has been extraordinary to be present for this debate, hearing people speak with great passion and enormous knowledge on the subject of palliative care in this country. It was wonderful to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, telling some touching stories about the kind of things that people want and need at the very end of their lives and to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, talk, in particular, about the needs of older people.
	Like the noble Lords, Lord Hayhoe and Lord Newton, and many others, I pay tribute to Dame Cicely Saunders, who was one of the people who introduced me to the hospice movement. When, a long time ago, a group of us talked to Dame Cicely about the possibility of setting up a multi-faith hospice, we discovered that she had sent away all other groups saying, "You don't need to do that to set up a home care service". In our case, she said, "It is needed". To a very large extent, hospices have an overwhelmingly Christian atmosphere and there is a need for a hospice that will specialise in a multi-faith approach and that will teach and disseminate different ways of thinking about palliative care. For her enthusiasm in that, many of us have reason to be very grateful.
	We also have reason to be grateful to someone who has not been mentioned today—Dame Albertine Winner, who was the first medical director of St Christopher's Hospice until Dame Cicely managed to requalify from her position as a nurse to become a doctor.
	I take slight issue with the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, who thought that there were a small number of people who liked to be in control of their lives and for whom palliative care might not be suitable. I do not think that the noble Lord ever had the pleasure of meeting my parents. They were the kind of people who liked to have control over their lives. At the end of their lives—neither of them suffered from cancer—they both received palliative care of the highest order. They were totally in control of the care they were given and the amount of medication that they received. That is very important. Some people do not want anything to do with palliative care but, in general within the palliative care movement, there is increasing recognition that the patients themselves take control of how things work.
	Like many other noble Lords, I believe that there is one issue that we should lay before the Government today, and I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about it. That is the lack of availability of palliative care for most conditions other than cancer, although there is some availability for motor neurone disease and for AIDS. There is clearly a question about how that works at present in this country. Others have spoken about children's hospices and the possibility of dying at home. It seems to me that we should take seriously the evidence of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, that about 25 per cent of people prefer to die at home. We should ask the Government what measures they will take to ensure that that is increasingly possible, particularly for those who do not have cancer.
	I became involved in this matter wearing my original rabbinic hat. My particular area is recognition of cultural and religious differences in palliative care and the need for sensitive handling of differences in palliative care, echoing very much what the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said. In some areas and in some hospices it is very much better than in others; for example, it is the main raison d'être of the North London Hospice. However, in my NHS experience, when I covered a patch that involved two London boroughs, it was infinitely better in one borough, Camden, than it was in the other, Islington. It is difficult to explain that, except for historical reasons.
	Like the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I want to throw a bouquet to Eden Hall, the Marie Curie hospice in Hampstead and the Royal Free Hospital palliative care team who seem to me to have it about right, dealing with an incredibly difficult and diverse population. It is enormously sensitive in dealing with people who do not have cancer. But to some extent, they are the exception and they are one of the beacons in London where availability of palliative care for conditions other than cancer is not very great. It is by no means universal. We can all tell stories, both good and bad.
	Some noble Lords will know that the Lisa Sainsbury Foundation was set up by the Sainsbury family trust, particularly to train nurses to deal with different divergent, ethnic, religious and spiritual issues. It no longer carries out that work. It made a valiant attempt but it was the kind of valiant attempt that, having started in the independent sector, now needs to be taken up by government. I ask the Minister how much work is to be done in that area. I believe a promise was made in the response to the health committee's report on palliative care that further work will be done. It would be good to know how far that has gone.
	This does not concern only religious and ethnic backgrounds; it also concerns professional backgrounds. One only has to ask a palliative care team about their nightmare patients and they will tell you that it is healthcare professionals, as they ask far too many questions and they want to know far too much about their own final diagnosis. I should think most Members of your Lordships' House would be very similar. Also they do not take advice and they are extremely difficult. That is only natural, given that they are healthcare professionals.
	That can also apply to people who are isolated from their home background. They receive the diagnosis that they are terminally ill in a specialist regional centre, miles away from home. They have bad news and there is very little availability of liaison teams, liaising with local palliative care services or liaison between specialist regional centres and local services. Even more pertinent perhaps is a case made brilliantly by Help the Aged in a report that it co-published with the policy press earlier this year, in which I was involved.
	There are also issues of discrimination on the basis of age or not having a malignant disease, about which we have heard so much today, or on the basis of living alone. If one is old and lives alone and one does not have the strength to argue for the kinds of services that one wants, very often, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said, one does not receive the treatment one wants. That is even more apparent with people who have end-stage dementia. We know that dementia at the end is largely a terminal condition. We know that older people generally receive far less in the way of palliative care. Often they will end their days, if they have a terminal disease, in a care home where the staff have rarely received any training whatever in dealing with people with an end-stage disease.
	A question that perhaps we should lay before the Minister today is what will be done to ensure the training of care assistants and relatively junior staff in care homes where many of our frailest older people will end their lives. It seems to me that we can do much at the top end—training doctors and nurses—but we have been slow to consider the training needs of care workers and care assistants, who often provide much of the personal care to frail and vulnerable older people at the end of their days.
	We all want a guarantee of palliative care to all who are dying of whatever condition. The Government have promised that, and we must congratulate them on what they have already done in the field of palliative care. I think that we all admire the Gold Standard Framework, which the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has already mentioned, and ask that government roll it out across the country.
	However, what will the Government do in the light of the relative underfunding of care homes? The King's Fund's London inquiry into the care market made it very clear that there is still tremendous underfunding in care homes. That underfunding makes it hugely difficult for care homes to improve the quality of their end-of-life care. What will happen when we have a large number of enthusiasts for palliative care in this country—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has already mentioned those strong, feisty, tough people—in healthcare teams wishing to provide a palliative care service and there is no available funding? Take, for instance, Doctor Mendes Da Costa's GP practice in Kidderminster—the well known Kidderminster that is always a nightmare. What will we do to allow local populations to make decisions about what palliative care is available? To what extent will it really be down to local PCTs and to what extent will government give greater guidance?
	I am running out of time, but I ask the Minister to answer two questions. First, we have heard that the Government will meet their manifesto pledge to double investment in palliative care services. We all want to know how much money that will be, what the basis of the calculation is, and when the money is coming. Secondly, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, mentioned, my former colleague Professor David Taylor, at the School of Pharmacy, argues that every £1 spent on palliative care releases £2 for other use in the National Health Service. Do the Government accept that calculation? If so, will they therefore increase their funding of palliative care accordingly?
	The palliative care movement and hospices are dearly loved in this country. We have already heard Nigel Crisp's description of palliative care services as the touchstone of a modernised health service. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that more will be done to help those wonderful services to grow, improve and increase their reach to the whole country.

Earl Howe: My Lords, when it comes to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, opening a debate on the subject of palliative care, all I can say is, in the words of the old song, "Nobody does it better". To listen to her today is to be reminded—although we do not need reminding—how fortunate we are to have her as a Member of this House.
	The first point that many noble Lords have emphasised is that when we talk about palliative care, we are talking about more than just the relief of physical pain and more than just activity in hospices. The noble Baroness brought out well that palliative care in its fullest sense embraces a wide arena of activity in a wide range of settings. The multi-disciplinary team that delivers specialist advice and pain relief to a terminally ill patient is an indispensable part of good palliative care. But, equally, the daily business of administering symptom relief, comfort and advice to the patient is as much that of the general practitioner, the physiotherapist and the care-home worker—the professional people who look after the person day to day—as it is of anyone else. In fact, the person who comes to sweep and tidy the house of someone who is terminally ill is administering a kind of palliative care if by doing so they are easing the patient's worries and making life generally more bearable.
	That is why the public debate about palliative care must recognise not only how care of the dying fits into mainstream health and social care but also that it behoves all professional people involved in the care of patients to understand the part that they can play in delivering what Sir Nigel Crisp has memorably called—it has been mentioned often today—a touchstone for success in modernising the NHS. The great thing about the NHS over the last decade or so is the way in which it has become a more patient-centred service. If ever there was a time when patient choice was pre-eminently important, it is surely at the end of life. People who say, somewhat loftily, that patients do not really want choice should just think of that.
	My noble friend Lord Newton rightly mentioned, as did the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, and a number of others, that this country has led the way in developing the whole ethos of hospice care, and that we have much to be proud of. That is true. Nevertheless, we should be under no illusions. We still have an enormous amount to do.
	The trouble is, as we have heard from many speakers but especially my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell of Markyate in his wonderful maiden speech, that access to palliative care is decidedly patchy. The inequity of access exists not just between different areas of the country, it is also a function of how old you are and what sort of illness you have. That is perhaps the most significant imbalance of all. The south of England, being relatively affluent, has witnessed the flowering of charitably-funded hospice care on a much wider scale than many socially-deprived areas, where the need for palliative care is at least as great, if not greater.
	Most people believe that hospices should not be state run. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Slynn of Hadley, is absolutely right. We want them to retain their predominantly charitable ethos and character. The fact remains, however, that, having contented ourselves with a laissez-faire approach to hospice provision, at least thus far, we have landed ourselves with a problem.
	Equally, the perceived white, middle-class, Christian underpinning of the hospice movement—I emphasize the word "percieved"—has, I am sure, served to deter, however unwittingly, many members of the ethnic minority communities from trying to access hospice care. Often, there may not be enough information to enable some of them to be made aware of it.
	Possibly the most troubling imbalance in provision, however, is the imbalance between terminal cancer care and the care of other conditions. This point has been made many times this afternoon. Of those looked after in hospices, 95 per cent have cancer. The NICE guidelines on palliative care are cancer-oriented. Yet three-quarters of those who die in this country die from other things. Help the Hospices say that at least 300,000 people a year who need palliative care are not getting it. The percentage of people who die in hospital is higher than in many other EU countries. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, some of us have seen how bleak and impersonal dying in hospital can often be.
	We hear from respected bodies such as the British Lung Foundation, the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Alzheimer's Society how difficult it is to secure specialist palliative care for non-cancer patients. Part of the trouble is that, for chronic lung disease and dementia, the illness has an uncertain trajectory and can progress quite slowly. With motor neurone disease, the trajectory is fairly swift and certain. The kind of care a patient needs at the end of his life, however, can be extremely labour-intensive and complex. Many hospices, with the best will in the world, are simply not resourced to deliver more than a certain amount of that sort of care. Professor Mike Richards has suggested one way around this: to give those providing general palliative care a better understanding of the key skills that have been developed in specialist palliative care. That idea is fine but, of course, it is nothing like a complete answer if we really want patients to have choice.
	One barrier is money. In the NHS Cancer Plan, the Government promised an extra £50 million a year to fund specialist palliative care and, in 2003, a one-off £12 million payment to support the implementation of, among other things, the Gold Standards Framework and the Liverpool Care Pathway. All that is very welcome. As my noble friend Lord Cavendish told us, however, it is perfectly clear that the money has not been reaching the places it was meant for. It is being swallowed up by other programmes. The Government promised the Health Select Committee in another place a full report on the use of the £50 million, but, as far as I know, that report has not yet been produced. It will be interesting to see what it says. Meanwhile the attitude of Ministers appears to be that it is up to PCTs to decide on their own local priorities, and if that means not spending their full allocation on commissioning palliative care, then so be it. I venture to say to the Minister that for most of us that is not good enough.
	What are strategic health authorities doing? How are they performance-managing trusts on the way that specialist services are being commissioned and NICE guidance is, or is not, being followed? If the delivery of palliative care really is the touchstone for success in modernising the NHS, why is it not being recognised more vigorously? The Select Committee report graphically brought out the current weakness in the commissioning process, not least the disjointedness between trusts and social services. Many palliative care networks have no social care partners in them at all.
	So we really need to ask the Minister what steps are being taken to encourage and strengthen commissioning of these services, particularly joint commissioning by PCTs. With the advent of payment by results in two years' time, the full cost of palliative care services currently funded from charitable sources will have to be funded from PCT budgets. But without the tariff being set, we still have no real idea of how much money PCTs will need to find, nor how much extra funding they will be given to cover it. These are issues of considerable concern to those working in the hospice movement, and it would be most helpful if the Minister could shed some light on them when he replies.
	To give more patients the opportunity to access palliative care, we can call for all the obvious things: funding, professional training, more respite care for carers, the Gold Standards Framework and so on. But there is one simple-sounding thing that could do much good and which I believe we would do well to bear in mind, and that is better communication. Better communication between doctor and patient will open up more channels of opportunity. Better communication between families and hospital staff will open up better levels of understanding about the available options and the patient's wishes. Communication between those providing specialist care and those providing more general care will spread good practice. Communication between health and social services will improve and speed up commissioning. Without proper communication, we cannot do justice to the core principle of the hospice movement, so aptly mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hayhoe, which is respect for the individual. Indeed, it is the skill of looking after a patient as an individual that marks out the good doctor, nurse or carer. That thought, as much as any other, should, I venture to suggest, impel the Government and the NHS as they carry the palliative care movement forward.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for raising this very important topic for discussion today, and to other noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Baroness has made a major contribution to the field of palliative care through her work as a consultant in palliative care at Velindre NHS trust and at the Holme Towers Marie Curie Centre, which she established. She is an acknowledged world authority on the care of terminally ill cancer patients and is well qualified to lead today's debate, as she demonstrated. On behalf of the Government, I congratulate her on her public conversion to targets today.
	I also pay tribute to the work of Dame Cicely Saunders, who has done so much in this area. She started her iconic hospice very near where I live today. I am sure we send her our best wishes. I also congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, on his well informed and humane speech and on the real commitment he showed in reaching this debate today. As a health Minister, I commend him for the commitment to exercise that he has shown.
	I recognise that the diagnosis and treatment of a chronic and serious disease can have a major impact on the quality of patients' lives and those of their families and carers, as noble Lords have described. Palliative care seeks to address those needs, and we want it to be available to as many as need it, irrespective of clinical condition or their cultural backgrounds. I had some direct experience of watching someone die very slowly from motor neurone disease, and I realise how much they need that support and care in those final days.
	In seeking to advance palliative care, we are seeking to advance a holistic care by multi-professional teams, for people, their families, and carers, where the illness may no longer be curable. It should enable patients to achieve the best possible quality of life during the final stages of their illness. It should address all the needs of those patients such as symptom control, pain relief and, importantly, emotional, psycho-social and spiritual needs. That support and care should be provided to patients and to their families, friends and carers both during the patient's illness and into bereavement. That is our aspiration.
	As a Government, we fully recognise the importance of providing effective and efficient palliative and specialist palliative care service and that the advances provided to many people in recent years must be extended more widely to more people. Those services need to be available in the community, in hospitals, in care homes and in hospices. The principles of palliative care should apply equally across all conditions and in all settings. Those points were well made by noble Lords in the debate, and we agree fully with them. Ensuring that patients have access to the palliative care services that they need presents a number of challenges, as noble Lords have recognised and we recognise as well as a Government.
	I shall briefly set out the Government's strategy for addressing those challenges and building on the progress that we have made over recent years. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and other noble Lords for the recognition that progress has been made. I shall try to be as specific as I can in responding to the issues raised in the debate.
	First, much of the specialised care that people have described today needs to be provided by health and other professionals who specialise in palliative care, such as those working in hospital specialist palliative care teams or in hospices. However, in most instances and for most patients, it is almost inevitable that palliative care will be delivered by people who are not specialist palliative care staff. That includes a range of professionals and carers such as GPs, district nurses and ward staff.
	We have to improve the palliative care skills and awareness of a wider group of health professionals so that all are able to provide palliative care as and when required. That is important and it is the way in which we want to progress. It will not only widen the number of staff able to provide such care but also allow people to exercise choice in where they are cared for and where they die. We know that most people say that they would prefer to be cared for and die at home if they had a terminal illness rather than go into a hospice or hospital. However, the reality is that only 20 per cent of all deaths occur in a person's own home, with a further 20 per cent dying in care homes, which of course for many older people is their own home. Providing higher quality end-of-life care to all who need it, where they need it, will be a real marker of success for the NHS. We are trying to bring choice to the forefront of healthcare in this country, and choice in palliative care and end-of-life care are key areas that we are working on and, as has been acknowledged today, making some progress on.
	For example, between 2001 and 2004 we invested £6 million to improve the training of district nurses in the principles and practices of palliative care. That funding has enabled participation by over 10,000 nurses, which is one in four district nurses, together with many other healthcare professionals, in continuing their professional development programme. The programme's aim was to give primary healthcare teams the confidence to support patients with advanced cancer and their carers, to help patients to stay at home for as long as possible during their illness, and to die there if they wish and if circumstances permit.
	Secondly, the White Paper, Building on the Best: Choice, Responsiveness and Equity in the NHS, highlighted the importance of choices at the end of life and emphasised the need to enable patients to make choices about where they would prefer to live and die.
	Following on from that, we have instigated our end-of-life care programme. Working in partnership—a word rightly used much today—with organisations like Marie Curie Cancer Care and Macmillan Cancer Relief, the programme will invest £12 million over three years to provide training for staff working in general practice, care homes and hospital wards. This means that all adult patients nearing the end of life, regardless of their diagnosis, will have access to high-quality palliative care and will be able to choose, if they wish, to die at home.
	The initiative will specifically support the wider rolling out of tried and tested tools, including the gold standards framework to which a number of noble Lords referred, and the Liverpool Care Pathway. These tools were recommended in the NICE supportive and palliative care guidance and endorsed by the Health Select Committee.
	I will give a few examples of how the NHS is rolling out new end-of-life care programmes. In Manchester, they are addressing the requirements of people with mental health needs who are approaching the end of life. In West London, the focus includes working with people with learning difficulties and those in prison; while in Dorset and Somerset, they are strengthening out-of-hours emergency care services. One particular priority, addressed by all areas, is rolling out the capacity of care homes to improve here, in order to reduce the number of inappropriate admissions to hospital in the last week of life.
	We have also made progress on other aspects of palliative and specialist palliative care. We believe that a successful, mature and sustainable partnership is essential between government, the NHS and the voluntary sector at both national and local level; one that values the contributions of all, while being critical and integral to good quality, responsive, person-centred health and social services. Noble Lords have rightly mentioned the contribution that social care has to make in this area.
	I acknowledge that the voluntary sector has led the way in developing palliative care services in the United Kingdom. Indeed, it continues to provide over half of palliative care provision. Organisations such as local hospices—a number of which have been mentioned today—Marie Curie Cancer Care, Macmillan Cancer Relief and Sue Ryder Care have made an invaluable contribution in providing care. They have guided and implemented government policies and instigated innovative and exciting developments. I pay tribute to them all, and to the voluntary sector's particular overall contribution in this area. I know, as former chairman of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, that the independence of the sector is much valued, and that it will defend that independence jealously.
	We will work away at strengthening further the partnership between the Government, the NHS and the voluntary sector. It means addressing that sector's particular concerns, including those of funding.
	I turn now to the issue of funding in more detail. In 2000, it was estimated that the voluntary sector in England was contributing £170 million per year to specialist palliative care services—hospices, home care and hospital services—while the NHS was contributing £130 million. The Government therefore pledged, in the NHS Cancer Plan, to invest an additional £50 million per annum in specialist palliative care services for adults. This was to help to tackle the inequalities in access to services, and to enable the NHS to make a realistic contribution to the costs that hospices incur in providing agreed levels of service.
	To support this commitment, Ministers set up the national partnership group for palliative care. This has a key membership from the NHS, local, voluntary and NHS hospices, major national charities and the Department of Health. Its role is to develop a new approach to palliative care funding and planning. For the most part, this has provided an excellent model of partnership working at both national and local level—although I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, has been less than enthused about the relationship between his local hospice and the PCT. No doubt, the PCT and the strategic health authority will study his remarks carefully. I will certainly ensure that their attention is drawn to the terms of this debate.
	The pledge in the NHS cancer plan has been delivered. The extra money has been allocated and it is for the most part being used effectively to improve services for patients throughout England.
	I hope that noble Lords will recognise that we are investing considerable extra resources in the NHS. Those resources have doubled since 1997 and are now increasing to more than £92 billion in 2007–08. We are working with a very large organisation to which we have to devolve priorities. We have to move away from any attempt at command and control from Richmond House. It is inevitable, therefore, that primary care trusts are responsible for commissioning and funding local services. They have to be able to use these resources to deliver on both national and local priorities, including palliative care.
	In today's NHS, it is very much down to people at local level to use the extra money available for local priorities and to ensure that services such as palliative care are commissioned and provided. We rely on local communities to make their voices heard in these areas.
	In future, Payment by Results and the national tariff for the various healthcare resource groups will radically change the arrangements for funding providers of care. This will ultimately benefit patients as providers are rewarded for their efficiency and quality, and patients can make decisions that do not revolve around price. Work is under way to develop a new version of the healthcare resource groups and national tariffs for a variety of services, including specialist palliative care. This work is being supported by an expert working group, the membership of which includes representatives of both the NHS and the voluntary sector. The national tariff, when introduced for specialist palliative care, could provide the basis for the full cost recovery which was recommended by the Treasury's Cross Cutting Review of the Voluntary and Community Sector in Service Delivery. That review stated that,
	"funders should recognise that it is legitimate for voluntary and community sector providers to include the relevant element of overheads in their cost estimates for providing a given service under service agreement or contract".
	The national tariff will ensure that, in future, all providers of services to NHS patients, across all sectors, are paid on a transparent and fair basis for the services that meet patients' needs. The emphasis will therefore be on effective negotiation between contracting partners to deliver the best in patient care.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, made an eloquent point on commissioning. The Government are committed to strengthening commissioning in this area. Only this morning, I spoke to a conference about strengthening and developing practice-based commissioning, and improving strategic commissioning in this country. It is concomitant with moving forward on Payment by Results that we strengthen commissioning in this country, not only for palliative care, but for a range of other services.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, raised the subject of delayed discharges legislation. I assure her that it has always been our intention to extend the delayed discharges legislation to other patient settings following consideration of the benefits for each patient group.
	Another area in which we have made progress is addressing inequalities in accessing palliative care service provision, although I freely admit, as noble Lords have said today, that we still have a considerable way to travel here. The historic development of hospice and palliative care services has often led to a concentration of hospices in more affluent areas and a shortage of services in areas of social deprivation in particular, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, made very clear. There is no disagreement between us on that.
	The greatest inequity, however, relates to the comparative lack of palliative care services for patients with advanced incurable illnesses other than cancer, as other noble Lords have said.
	The sustained increase in funding which we are providing for the NHS, including the higher levels of funding for the 88 spearhead PCTs in deprived areas, will enable the NHS to continue to deliver improved services and to tackle inequalities. I expect palliative care in these areas to benefit from the extra resources that are being focused on it.
	Let me reassure your Lordships, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Patel, that there are a number of examples of good practice where specialist palliative care service providers are working closely with minority ethnic communities to make their services more culturally sensitive. All service providers in today's culturally diverse Britain will need to show their services reflecting the ethnicity, faith and other features of the local populations they serve.
	Building on the Best specifically commits the Department of Health to tackle inequalities in palliative care provision. This is the objective of our end-of-life care programme and was one of the key objectives in the £50 million programme we have already discussed.
	Your Lordships will also be aware that we have published a number of national service frameworks. All of these, particularly those for children, for renal services, for long-term conditions and for older people, stress the importance of palliative care and end of life care and the importance of cultural diversity. Many of the initiatives we have taken in the field of cancer, including the training of district nurses that I have mentioned and the supportive and palliative care guidance published by NICE, will be of benefit to patients with other conditions as well as to those with cancer.
	A number of noble Lords mentioned palliative care for children. I do not want to dwell on that too long, other than to say that we recognise the need to make progress in this area. The National Service Framework for Children has set standards for local authorities and others to ensure that children's palliative care services provide high-quality and sensitive support.
	We are not complacent about this progress and we know that more needs to be done. A number of noble Lords have reminded us of our general election manifesto commitment and we are working closely with all who impact on its delivery. A great deal of work will be taken forward in the coming weeks. I pray in aid that since the election we have been in office for only two months. We are entitled to a little time to work in partnership with others in developing the arrangements for implementation.
	I know we are a government in a hurry and a government that make progress on their commitments, but we need to work with people such as Mike Richards, with the voluntary sector and with Marie Curie Cancer Care to develop the way forward on that commitment. We will honour the commitment and take matters forward.
	As many noble Lords will know, the Government have announced that they will be holding a major public engagement exercise on consulting the public about services outside hospital. This will enable us to address some of the end of life concerns that people have.
	I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I end by quoting the excellent article in the Guardian today by Tom Hughes-Hallet, the chief executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care. He said:
	"Surely it is society's responsibility to ensure that everyone can die with dignity. That means they should receive the proper care and support they deserve".
	That is our mission in this area.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. I am particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, for having chosen this debate for his maiden speech, which we all enjoyed enormously. I am also grateful to the Minister for outlining what the Government are already doing to ensure that state-of-the-art palliative care is rolled out faster. His recognition of its importance and the need to do more will hearten all those working in hospice and palliative care.
	The way in which society responds to human tragedy in every form, shoulders its responsibility and works tirelessly is a reflection of its dignity and its values. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Dentists Act 1984 (Amendment) Order 2005

Lord Warner: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 26 May be approved [2nd Report from the Merits Committee].
	One The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an order about patients. It will improve the way that the General Dental Council protects patients and increase patient choice by, first, setting standards for the profession and taking action when a dentist falls below those standards; secondly, by regulating the whole dental team; and, thirdly, by introducing compulsory indemnity cover.
	More than 70 individuals and organisations responded to consultation, the vast majority supporting the proposals. The order is part of the Government's programme to modernise the regulation of health professions. It updates the legal framework for dentistry in line with the model for other professions and has been developed with the General Dental Council.
	Amending legislation, such as this, can be hard to follow. We have therefore supplied a version of the Dentists Act "as it would look". I will summarise the main changes that the order brings about.
	The first concerns indemnity cover. Article 16 introduces a legal requirement to have such cover. That is important for patient protection. At present, regulators tell professionals that they need to be adequately insured, but may not find out that someone is uninsured until after the event, leaving the patient without compensation.
	The next change concerns fitness to practise. This updates how the General Dental Council deals with an allegation that a dentist's fitness to practise is impaired. Our policy is that the same legal approach ought to apply to a problem with any health professional. These changes take that agenda forward. The General Dental Council can currently deal with misconduct or health problems. It has difficulty dealing with poor professional performance—the ability to do the job—and the order will resolve that.
	The GDC has limited options to deal with impaired fitness to practise: it can strike someone off, suspend their registration or do nothing. The order will provide an additional option: to impose conditions on registration such as the requirement to undertake further training, or be chaperoned when with a female patient. The final change is regulating professions complementary to dentistry. Currently two groups, dental therapists and hygienists, are registered under enrolled status. The order will bring the regulation of those two groups to a comparable footing with the regulation of dentists. It will also allow the General Dental Council, with parliamentary approval, to bring other groups, such as dental nurses and dental technicians, into regulation. That will allow redesign of care around patient need. Professions complementary to dentistry will be subject to rigorous standards of training, conduct, health and performance and these are set out in this section.
	These are worthwhile reforms that will make a real difference to patients. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 26 May be approved [2nd Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Warner.)

Earl Howe: My Lords, this order is welcome and I am grateful to the Minister for setting out its meaning and effect so clearly. The General Dental Council exists to promote high standards of professional practice and to protect the public. The changes that the order makes to the structures and procedures of the council will, I am sure, be conducive to those ends.
	Especially welcome are the provisions relating to the new patients' complaints scheme and those that establish for the first time mandatory insurance or indemnity cover for dentists and dental care professionals. On that issue, I am aware that there are differing views about whether a contract of insurance from a commercial provider is preferable to an indemnity from a mutual, not-for-profit organisation. I have discussed the issues extensively with representatives from both camps.
	My conclusion, with which I hope that the Minister will agree, is that there are advantages to both approaches but that, provided the mutual has prudent levels of reserves, the suggestion that a discretionary indemnity arrangement is inappropriate or unsafe for dentists and patients is misplaced. Indeed, there are respects in which a discretionary indemnity can be more responsive and flexible than a contract of insurance.
	The Minister will know that dentists have voiced concern about three main issues. The first relates to erasure from the dentists' register. Article 17 states that when erasure takes place, it must be for a minimum term of five years. The immediate question that arises from that is why the Government feel it necessary to be so prescriptive. If we believe in the principle of self-regulation for the dental profession, why should not the council have discretion to apply whatever term of erasure it deems appropriate to a particular case?
	The Government's answer appears to be that there must be consistency across all the medical professions. Doctors and nurses, for example, are subject to an identical minimum term of erasure. The difficulty with that argument of symmetry is that, at least in one respect, dentists are not like the other self-regulated professionals. To be a proficient dentist, you absolutely have to keep your hand in. That means more than just maintaining your level of theoretical knowledge; it means crucially maintaining manual dexterity and practising the techniques of dentistry. If dentists do not use their skills, they lose them pretty rapidly. To erase a dentist from the register for five years would be equivalent to erasing him for the rest of his life, in practical terms. It would be virtually impossible for him to reskill.
	We need to ask whether that is fair or right. The order cannot be amended today, of course, but I hope that the Minister will agree to sit down with the representatives of the profession and talk the issue through further. To be saying, in effect, that a rule is a rule is to avoid the real argument.
	Article 25 has given rise to another worry. When an allegation against a dentist is received and referred to the investigating committee, certain people have to be informed straight away. If a health body is informed, an alert letter may have to be issued. One can see why that requirement should have been thought necessary. After all, we are dealing with the protection of the public—no one questions that. But what if the allegation were malicious or otherwise poorly founded? What if the committee looked at the allegation and quickly decided that there was no case to answer? If employers and others have already been notified that there is a question mark hanging over the dentist's good name, the damage will in part have been done.
	I therefore think that we need to know that the GDC will refer to the investigating committee only those cases that it believes have potentially serious implications for the dentist's fitness to practise. In other words, the GDC should make sure that some preliminary sifting takes place to separate the more serious allegations from the less serious ones.
	The third main area of concern relates to Article 39 and the provisions surrounding dental bodies corporate. The worry there is that, as drafted, the measures do not represent adequate protection for the public, because they do not include a robust regulatory mechanism. There is a power to investigate and fine a body corporate or director for various misdemeanours, but where a body corporate has acted wrongly but not in a manner serious enough to require erasure, there ought to be a power open to the GDC to take action in cases that might lead to suspension or the imposition of conditions.
	Equally, there is no power for the GDC to issue guidance to dental bodies corporate. Nor is it clear what information the GDC can require a body corporate to supply to it whereby it can be effectively regulated. Will the Minister reconsider those issues?

Baroness Barker: My Lords, we, too, welcome the order. I thank the Minister very much for the way in which he introduced them to the House. The format in which they were printed and presented to us was also extremely helpful.
	We welcome the order as it has been welcomed by the profession, particularly because it opens up and extends the range of measures that may be taken when a dentist is known to have failed in their performance. It introduces powers to insist on further professional training. We have a number of concerns similar to those put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Howe.
	We too are of the view that the five-year period of erasure appears wholly arbitrary. It seems insufficient reasoning on the part of the Government to say that it is necessary to have the same term of erasure for different professions.
	The effect of a five-year ban on a dentist will be wholly different from a ban on a nurse. That seems not only arbitrary but somewhat draconian, at a time when we already know from the many debates that we have had in your Lordships' House in the past few weeks that there is an acute shortage of dentists. I support the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in questioning the Government in his suggestion that there should be greater flexibility.
	I refer to the notification and disclosure by the council in Article 25. It seems unreasonable that there should be a general notification at the allegation stage. Will the Minister say why the Government have not considered implementing such measures only after an investigating committee has looked at the allegations and considered whether there is any foundation to them? The public have a right to know that the dentists in their area perform to a decent standard. However, it is not inconceivable that somebody with a grudge could try to orchestrate a campaign against a dental practice or a particular dentist if he knew that this draconian means of doing so was at his disposal. The Minister needs to consider the issue again.
	On Article 39 and dental bodies corporate, I, too, agree with the noble Earl. The issue is about dentists who work for the dental body corporate having to follow practices set by that body, rather than acting on the basis of their own professional knowledge. It therefore seems right that there should be parallel powers, as there are in social care, when CSCI can address practices that are failures of the corporate body, which is the provider, rather than addressing the practitioners on the front line.
	Will the Minister confirm that the requirements for there to be compulsory insurance cover will not force dentists to abandon the mutual indemnity insurance that they have hitherto enjoyed? Other Ministers have heard me on other subjects talking about indemnity insurance policies, which can be so limited and exclusive that when push comes to shove, they provide very little cover. It would seem wholly wrong if this power had the reverse effect of making cover within dentistry more limited for patients.
	On Article 29, it is welcome that the order provides for dental care professionals to pay their annual retention fee by instalments. Will that provision also be made available for dentists?

Lord Warner: My Lords, several points have been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, to which I shall try to respond briefly.
	On the subject of the five-year period for erasure being too harsh, I remind noble Lords that patient safety is paramount. It is important that patients are protected from the few dentists and professionals complementary to dentistry who act unprofessionally. Erasure will be used only in the most serious circumstances. The order will give the General Dental Council a range of penalties short of erasure with which to deal with less serious cases.
	In addition, the Government want to ensure consistency across the profession. The same minimum period of erasure is already in place for other professions, such as doctors, nurses, opticians and professions regulated by the Health Professions Council.
	Perhaps I may gently remind the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that surgeons and physiotherapists also need to keep their hand in, if I may put it that way. We are content that the General Medical Council can match the penalty to the offence in the most appropriate way.
	I turn to disclosure. It is important for patient protection that those who employ or contract with dentists are alerted as soon as possible when the GDC is investigating an allegation. That is a tried and tested approach that we consider represents an appropriate balance between a dentist's privacy and the need to protect members of the public, which is the goal of all professional regulation.
	Similar provisions already cover other professions, including doctors, nurses and the professions regulated by the Health Professions Council, so dentists are in line with their fellow health professionals in that area.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked about the GDC giving guidance on bodies corporate. It does not do that in the same way that it can for individual dentists. The order does not change the law in the area; it is maintaining the status quo. Ultimately, impaired fitness to practise is by an individual, which are the cases that do the most harm to the patient.
	We sought consultation views on indemnity insurance. There was a debate on the type of indemnity that fulfils the requirement; both indemnity insurance and discretionary indemnity were discussed. The only significant issue that arose was the appropriateness of different types of cover. The Government's position, which is reflected in the order, is that registrants should be able to use mutual organisations that provide discretionary indemnity as well as insurance companies.
	We have tried to maintain that balance and the order will make indemnity cover compulsory, but it will allow the General Dental Council to decide what cover is adequate and appropriate. We are not seeking to discriminate between one or the other in this area.
	I have tried to answer most of the questions. If I find that I have not done so I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, perhaps I may offer a word on timing as we begin the final debate. As the House will know, time is running a little later than we had thought for the obvious reason that there was an unanticipated Statement. The advisory time for finishing tonight is 7 pm. I hope that the House will agree that it is reasonable, particularly for the staff who serve us so well, that we aim to finish at the normal finishing time of 7 pm. We can do that, first, if I finish speaking fairly rapidly, but secondly, in particular, leaving aside the opener, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and the three winders, if the other speakers could confine themselves to seven minutes we should finish by the 7 pm advisory finishing time.

Life-long Learning (EUC Report)

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: rose to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on the Proposed EU Integrated Action Programme for Life-long Learning (17th Report, Session 2004–05, HL Paper 104).

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I would like to start by thanking all of those involved in producing the report on the European Union's life-long learning programmes. It was my first inquiry as chairman of Sub-Committee G and I am grateful to its members for their tolerance and support, their splendid contribution to the report and for their participation in this evening's debate.
	I want to thank our Committee Clerk, Gordon Baker, for his efficiency and unflappable demeanour during an inquiry carried out at top speed, ably assisted in the essential nuts and bolts department by Melanie Moore. Oriel Petry, our committee adviser, and our two special advisers, Professor Karen Evans and Mr Mike Bourke, both of whom have personal experience of the Socrates programme, were of immense service to the sub-committee in helping us to understand the subtleties of commission thinking, the philosophy behind the programme and the details of its operation.
	The special advisers left behind them a splendid memento in the glossary of more than 190 educational acronyms at the end of the report, which I daresay many people would find useful. We owe a special debt to the British Council, which helped to find witnesses with hands-on experience of Socrates; to the Department for Education and Skills for its detailed response to all our recommendations, as well as for its evidence; and to all those who gave oral or written evidence to the inquiry.
	Indeed, the British Council, which acts as the national agency for the commission's programmes, is universally admired by all our witnesses. I am particularly pleased therefore to see that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will make his maiden speech in today's debate. I know that we are all looking forward to this event. I am also grateful to the members of the sub-committee itself, who will speak today. They will be able to cover some of the matters that I shall not be able to cover even in, I am afraid, a rather lengthy speech.
	The report is concerned with the Commission's proposal to renew and partly reform a well known set of programmes for student and teacher exchange across the EU at all levels of education. Activity and education at a European level started in the 1970s and has a secure treaty base.
	The most recent version of these programmes, known as Socrates, has run in two six-year tranches since 1995 and was last examined by the EU Select Committee in 1998. Socrates, together with a hitherto separate training programme called Leonardo, was recently the subject of an extensive evaluation exercise on the part of the Commission, and the present proposals reflect the result of that analysis. They are also intended to respond to the demands placed on the EU institutions by the Lisbon process, which has the objective of making the EU,
	"the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010".
	I leave it to your Lordships to judge whether it is wise to have that kind of ambition. The proposals also interact with the Bologna process, aimed at achieving by 2010 greater interoperability and equivalents in first and second degree courses within a single area of higher education in the EU.
	We undertook our inquiry for a number of different reasons. First, we wanted to know how well the existing programmes were working in practice and what lessons might be learned from them. Secondly, we had our doubts about the more than threefold increase in the budget to €13.6 billion for the upcoming period compared with the immediate past. We wanted to know how the budget would be apportioned between different elements of the overall programme.
	In the proposed programme, those elements will be Comenius for pupils and teachers in schools, Erasmus for higher education and advance vocational education and training, Leonardo for all other vocational education and training, and Grundtvig for adult and continuing education. We wanted to understand the individual programmes and how effective they were, how many students or institutions were involved, what benefits the programmes delivered and what had been added to the programmes by the phrase "life-long learning". I shall not be able to cover all the answers to all those questions, but I shall do my best at least to indicate some of the broad thrust of our conclusions.
	We also wanted to know how much interest the UK Government took in these programmes. Did the Government recognise the benefits that students and teachers obtained from them? Were they embedded in government education policy? It is perhaps worth stating straight away that, in general, the programmes seemed to us to be well founded and of great benefit to those who used them. We had both written and spoken evidence and statistical evidence to support that approach. Nevertheless, we all have some doubts about some aspects of them. We want to see a more systematic, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the benefits to those who take part in them and the wider benefits to the EU and its member states, and we recommend that the Commission undertakes that kind of analysis.
	On the other hand, although we were unable to judge whether the proposed budget of €13.6 billion is appropriate for the next seven years roll-out of the programme, we still feel that such a large increase requires very sound justification. I believe that in their response the Government have agreed with that approach.
	At the same time, we have been broadly critical of some of the administration of the scheme—a topic to which I now turn. During the inquiry we were fortunate to take evidence from a number of people with practical experience of running the programmes or assisting others to do so. In addition, written and statistical evidence from academic and other sources gave us a wider perspective on the benefits that could be obtained as well as the defects of some of them. I take the Comenius and Leonardo programmes for schools—perhaps less well known than the Erasmus programme, which operates at university level—as my exemplars for some of the benefits obtained from running the programmes and some of the difficulties faced by those who do so.
	The basic building block for achieving funding is the creation of a partnership between schools and teacher training institutions in several EU member states. Within those partnerships the programme can fund in-service training and work experience for teachers; school development projects based on sharing experience of teaching methods; the teaching and learning of languages, including those less widely used within the European Union; and the development of subject-based information networks between schools.
	Thus three small primary schools in rural Suffolk formed partnerships with schools in Belgium, Latvia and Lithuania, building on existing strong links with Flanders. Pupils and teachers in those schools have gained in a number of different ways. Children have taken part in visits and in the reception of children coming to their school, and acquired a basic understanding of how to interact with and try to understand foreigners. Imaginative joint educational programmes have kept those contacts alive and play a valuable role in the continuing life of learning and teaching within schools. One example is an art project involving pupils across the partnership schools in each country copying a major artwork from their own country and then discussing with their fellow schools via the Internet and e-mail the problems that they had to solve in doing so.
	Teachers involved in the project benefited through exchange of information on teaching practice—which is always valuable to teachers and valued by them—and on the process of learning, a major objective of every good teacher. The experience of successfully organising partnerships and cross-border exchanges between teachers and pupils is in itself a process that demonstrates and enhances skills which, while they receive no cash reward, that cannot but assist in future promotion.
	Meanwhile, in a 2002 survey, a majority of 311 teachers who had taken part in the Comenius project agreed that participation had increased pupils' willingness to learn other languages, improved teachers' project management skills, contributed to improved teacher practice and improved pupils' general motivation to learn. Ninety-seven per cent would recommend Comenius projects to other schools and teachers. Academic experts confirm those findings. Among other respondents, the Welsh Assembly Government reported overwhelmingly positive feedback from Welsh teachers involved in Comenius projects.
	On the other hand, we also heard evidence from an officer specially appointed by a local education authority to encourage access to the Comenius programme by the schools and other institutions within the LEA. That evidence highlighted the fact that in most education authorities there is no such person charged with making the programmes better known and better used. A similar picture of well constructed and successful schemes, funded under the Leonardo programme for colleges and other groups dedicated to improving the prospects of pupils training for work, was made clear to the sub-committee.
	The sub-committee was particularly struck by the project managed by Grampus/Clark Mactavish in Cumbria in the context of changes in the forestry industry in the UK and other member states. That has involved mobility exchange projects in 28 European countries involving more than 2,000 people travelling out from the United Kingdom for stays lasting up to six months. Grampus is currently involved in a seven-nation project for developing forest-based recreation by setting up training modules through which best practice and innovation can be exchanged. The output from those activities, apart from the benefits to the individuals involved, include the introduction into the management of forests in the UK of new forestry skills and new products and processes developed in other member states.
	At schools and colleges, enormous efforts are made to offer those programmes to children and young people who might be excluded by reason of disability or social exclusion, despite the additional problems caused by, for example, taking groups of young people with physical disabilities on long international journeys to places where they cannot communicate with anyone—to begin with, at any rate—except the teachers who have accompanied them.
	Inclusion is an important theme of the new programmes, and at the level of Comenius and Leonardo it is pursued with dedication by practitioners. However, there are serious difficulties that the schools, colleges and others involved in Comenius and Leonardo have to overcome, and these are reflected in the sub-committee's conclusions and recommendations which are directed partly to the Commission and partly to HMG.
	The two major complaints about how the projects are managed and funded by the Commission are to do with bureaucracy and insufficient funding for unavoidable additional expenditure. Travel expenses of participants in exchange programmes from the furthest parts of the Scottish Isles are often much greater than those from the south-east of England but do not attract additional funding. Teachers who are away from school need to be replaced during their absence but there is no funding for cover. The committee was pleased with the Government's encouraging response to that point.
	The bureaucratic method by which the Commission grants are obtained and audited places costs on already hard pressed educational institutions. The application forms are extremely complicated and lengthy and there is a long wait until the response comes through and the institution can be confident that the project can go ahead. This is administrative money paid in advance for something which you cannot be certain that you will obtain.
	At the end of the project the audit requirements are totally out of proportion to the relatively minor sums of money spent on any project in any year. Of course, we are all aware that the Commission is under great pressure to prove that it can put together accurate and trustworthy accounts. However, when it becomes necessary to produce every bus ticket as evidence of expenditure to satisfy the Commission, the question of proportionality takes on a totally new meaning.
	Other problems lie at the door of HMG that can be partially summed up by the word "disconnect". That word was frequently used by those giving evidence to the sub-committee. Teachers and others trying to carry out projects under these programmes feel that the programmes are little regarded by government and not sufficiently embedded in government policies. They sense a lack of strategic direction. They feel that they get little support or assistance from the upper echelons of education management with some of the practical and financial problems. Nor does the Department for Education and Skills seem to them to be interested in promoting the use of the programmes as a useful tool for education in its widest sense, and teacher training takes no account of them.
	Our recommendations to Her Majesty's Government starting at paragraph 390 on page 75 of the report address most of these points and pay particular attention to the need for the department to develop a clear strategy to maximise the benefit of these programmes. We perfectly understand that the amount of money which can be obtained for these programmes is minute by comparison with the total education budget. Nevertheless we all felt that, properly used, they could bring a new dimension into the education of pupils and students.
	I have deliberately not covered the Erasmus programme for student exchange at university level or the Grundtvig programme for older people, not because the sub-committee did not consider them to be important or that it did not make recommendations with regard to what should happen in them, but because I am aware that others will be doing so. However, I feel that I should not close before mentioning the subject of language in UK schools—the subject most referred to in the press coverage of this report. The sub-committee's criticism of the Government's approach to the teaching of languages is contained in paragraphs 399–402 on page 76 of the report. We concluded that the UK is already falling behind in language learning capability. This will severely limit British ability to take part in and benefit from the new European programmes, and that will have ongoing adverse implications for the employability and cultural awareness of the coming generation.
	The Government contest that view. However, a recent report by CILT, the National Centre for Languages, confirms what we have said by stating that the low level of language ability demonstrated by UK business is exemplified by a European language league table ranking the UK at the bottom with a smaller percentage of the population able to speak another language than even Turkey, Hungary or Portugal. That report establishes a link between the balance of trade between the UK and its trading partners, and the penetration of English within the trading partner. We do better in markets where large numbers of people speak English than we do when we have to sell, as it were, in a foreign language.
	The Government have rejected our conclusions on language learning. Perhaps this practical report, which time does not enable me to explain further, will help to change minds on a subject on which every Member of the sub-committee was in enthusiastic agreement. I beg to move.
	Moved, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on the Proposed EU Integrated Action Programme for Life-long Learning (17th Report, Session 2004–05, HL Paper 104).—(Baroness Thomas of Walliswood.)

Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I must declare an interest. I am chairman of one of the sector skills councils, relating to engineering. I have a number of other relevant interests recorded in your Lordships' register and, indeed, in the appendix to the report.
	As a member of this sub-committee, I rise to endorse the findings of our inquiry and the overall message that our sub-committee has sent to the Government on our involvement in these programmes. I also accept most, although not all, of the Government's response to our report. However, as someone actively involved with skills and life-long learning policy within the UK for some years, I would like to draw your Lordships' attention to one or two realities from the perspective of employers, the wealth creators on whose tax contribution European and United Kingdom policy programmes ultimately depend.
	As your Lordships will be aware, in recent years government policy on vocationally-related education and training has increasingly been driven by the realities of employer skill needs, and rightly so. Be assured, however, that I am not advocating the elimination of all public investment in non-directed learning. I am underlining the importance, for both our future prosperity and the employability of the individual, of our taxes going into learning activities that will move us towards achieving the goal the Council of Ministers set itself at the beginning of the new millennium in Lisbon. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, has already said, this was for Europe to become, by 2010, what they described as:
	"the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion".
	That is part of the so-called Lisbon declaration.
	As your Lordships would expect, skill-raising forms a major part of the process by which the Lisbon goals were to be achieved. This confirms the strategic importance of those life-long learning initiatives as one of the means by which this skill-raising is to be promoted within the European Union.
	In my view, it is our commitment in Britain to driving skills policy and life-long learning investment in this targeted way that has helped the UK economy to respond strongly over recent years to the inexorably growing challenge of globalisation—a position not enjoyed by a number of our partner member states.
	As we have observed over recent weeks, and as the Government will undoubtedly find during their all-too-brief six months at the helm, handling relations with our fellow member states in the EU is not always easy going. The very richness of the diversity within the 25 nation states brings with it a thousand practical hurdles, most minor but some significant, to the task of tackling some of our common problems in a timely and effective way.
	Nowhere is the richness of European diversity richer than in the field of education, training and skills. If there is one thing I have learned about skills policy and its implications for education and training provision, it is that the needs of the marketplace must be a major influence in our thinking. Hence the importance of active employer involvement in the shaping of life-long learning policies, whether within each member state or for the Union as a whole.
	The so-called "Lisbon goals" were to be achieved by 2010. Now that we are halfway there, it is clear, not least from the formal review carried out by the Commission last year, that progress has been patchy at best and, overall, disappointing.
	The exchange programmes that formed the major focus of our discussions in the review of the Commission's new proposals are undoubtedly valuable for those directly involved. Every single one of these experiences will contribute incrementally to our people's understanding of Europe. However, I believe that if we are to make real progress, we also need to examine some of the developmental aspects of these programmes. Although not the focus of the committee's attention, these are, as my involvement with the Sector Skills Council movement confirms, of greater strategic importance.
	This development work could begin to stimulate the innovation needed. Whatever final figure the Commission budget for life-long learning activity turns out to be, we need to ensure that it is used effectively in relation to economic need—and the Lisbon goals seem like a fairly sensible loadstone for that.
	Your Lordships will remember that the sub-committee's report reviewed all the significant education and training activities at the European level. We came away with a feeling that, although we in the United Kingdom might not agree with every aspect of the programmes, there is undoubtedly some worthwhile activity there. However, we were also clear that the United Kingdom involvement in it was limited in several ways, in particular the degree of take-up by our people of the opportunities these programmes offer and the seriousness with which we work to influence the activities going forward.
	Sadly, the Government do not seem to have taken on board the gravity of this situation and their response does not give me enormous encouragement that they are serious about ensuring a good return on the investment British taxpayers make in this part of the European budget.
	Let me turn to a small number of specifics around these programmes. First, as I say, we must continue to work for more employer influence on the shaping of the new programme. As the Commission develops its advisory arrangements, I would like to see the British Government pressing to ensure significantly greater representation from employer bodies. While such representation has, in principle, existed thus far for the individual programmes, if the new advisory structures are indeed to provide coherence and strategic leadership, it would seem to me to be a betrayal of the Lisbon rhetoric for this major public investment not to be strongly employer-led.
	I am as aware as anyone of the challenges of ensuring active employer input into public policy on life-long learning, but it can be done. Unfortunately, here I must record a real disappointment with the limited interest shown in our work by the Confederation of British Industry, which was unable to provide our inquiry with input commensurate with its major responsibilities in the learning and skills area, not least its role on the governing board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training.
	We can do better on this, and we must. As your Lordships would expect, I am sure that the UK sector skills councils would be happy to share their experience and guidance in this area with the Commission.
	Secondly, given the particularly great diversity in education and training within the Union, it is crucial to complement the exchange activity with serious work to enable mutual examination and greater understanding between the national life-long learning arrangements, to stimulate innovation in effective delivery. More than half of the Leonardo da Vinci programme budget thus far has gone into such work. While not all projects have been as focused and as successful as we might like, this mutual review and developmental work has brought considerable cross-fertilisation of ideas about the design and delivery of effective learning, to the benefit of the British organisations involved and, indeed, their continental partners.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, touched on the issue of languages. I will not add to it, save to say that I strongly endorse what the noble Baroness said.
	Finally, perhaps I may say a few words about bureaucracy and funding levels in the projects. As ever, there is a trade off between accountability and flexibility within funded programmes. Like the sub-committee, I am also advised that the bureaucracy and limited funding levels in a number of these programmes continue to cause frustrations.
	As far as bureaucracy is concerned, it is true that we all want to see arrangements in place to ensure that European public expenditure is both cost-effective and appropriate. While I am sure that everyone involved would like to do this better, I do not know whether the Commission is ever likely to resolve the dichotomy—which is never absent in public policy work—of ensuring adequate accountability while keeping bureaucracy low enough so that those involved can get on and do the job. I worry that in this area the Commission are exhibiting the bureaucracy without delivering the accountability.

Lord Kinnock: My Lords, I intervene in this debate to make my maiden speech in this House, by coincidence 35 years almost to the day since I first spoke in the other place as the new and then very young Member for Bedwellty. That causes me to reflect that politics must be the only sphere of human activity in which it is possible to arrive intactus on more than occasion.
	There are several reasons for my particular pleasure in being able to participate in this debate on a report from the EU Committee of this House, which is characteristically lucid and substantial. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and her colleagues on sustaining the high standards that have long been set in all respects by that committee.
	First, I began my professional life in the 1960s as a tutor organiser in the Workers' Educational Association, which has productively pursued the mission of life-long learning for more than a century. I am now privileged to be one of the vice-presidents of the association.
	Secondly, I have, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, implied, an interest to declare in this debate as chairman of the British Council. Apart from its many other brilliant attributes, it is the major United Kingdom national agency for the Socrates and Leonardo European Union programmes. Time forbids prolonged attention in this debate to the British Council's work. I simply and very proudly acknowledge the high level of satisfaction with the management of programmes in the United Kingdom and record that the European Union systems audit of the agencies of all member states cited the council as the benchmark for the management of EU education and training programmes across the Union.
	Thirdly, I was a member of the European Commission that adopted the integrated action programme proposals of my highly energetic colleague, Madame Viviane Reding. I was therefore pleased that the committee of this House finds "the present programmes valuable" and gives support to the Commission's aim to improve and expand them. In addition, I share the committee's reasoned doubts about the attainability of some of the targets of the integrated programme and I endorse the committee's recommendations across the board. I particularly commend the attention given by the committee to the agenda for promoting growth and employment in the European Union, which was adopted unanimously in January 2003 by the European Council in Lisbon.
	The heads of government proclamation of intention to make the European Union the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 was, to my ears at least, somewhat grandiose, especially since it did not specify any Community mechanism for operation, focus or follow-up to that mammoth enterprise. Nevertheless, commendable components for producing that outcome were listed by leaders who solemnly undertook to act simultaneously to achieve, among several other things, the improved functioning of labour markets and, crucially, increasing and consistent investment in wider and higher levels of workforce knowledge and skills.
	Those, and other, Lisbon objectives were, and are, essential and urgent and are all incrementally achievable with sustained strength of engagement. But, sadly, the measured evidence shows that it is not now possible to believe that they can be reached by 2010. The British Government and the leadership of some other member states, including several of the new member states, have shown diligence in pursing Lisbon objectives, recognising that in an organically integrating European economy, the internal and external prospects of each participant depend to a significant extent on the inputs and the outputs of all.
	Despite the self-evident common sense of that, despite the intensifying reality of renewed productivity growth in the United States of America, and despite the surging development of China, India and other muscular economic adolescents, the Lisbon commitment of some other member state governments has—to be very polite, as befits the temperament of this House—been limpid. If that is not changed radically and quickly, if the basic growth, competitiveness and employment objectives of Lisbon are not pursued with new avidity, productivity advance will continue to be snail-paced, globalisation will be more of a punishment than the gigantic opportunity that it really is, and the ageing of all European populations will bring impoverishment and tension between the generations—not in some science fiction future, but within two decades.
	Those who say that the innovations and restructuring required by Lisbon will endanger what they rather glibly call the "European social model", are abysmally wrong. The truly lethal threat to civilised and improving standards of welfare, care and opportunity will not come from implementation of the Lisbon Agenda, it will come from neglect of that strategy.
	They are the realities, backed by objective evidence, which provide the context for the European Union Committee's report. It is those verities which cry out for systematic and comprehensive public and private sector action to provide the education and training—the life-long learning—which will enable people from all backgrounds to gain and maintain the competences necessary to ensure sustainable growth and higher productivity, and their jobs, their security and their personal well-being.
	Obviously, advances in life-long learning cannot attain the Lisbon objectives by themselves. Many other ingredients are essential. But when knowledge and skills are the commanding heights of the modern economy, no component of the Lisbon Agenda is more vital.
	European Union integrated action for life-long learning will add strength and value to the overall effort. But as the European Commission, the EU Committee and every other rational authority makes clear, the fundamental determinant of the advance in educated and trained capacities for people of all ages and all potential is the quality and quantity of consistent provision and performance in all member states and by all member states.
	That is why I welcome the further action anticipated by our Government and I urge rapid and forceful implementation. It is also why I commend the report from the EU Committee to the House.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, it is with the greatest pleasure that I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and to congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech—one being made, as he told us, some 35 years on from his original maiden speech in another place. We all know that the noble Lord is a power in the land. He is now steering the British Council, on which I serve as a member, with consummate elegance as chairman. It was tremendous to hear him speak about life-long learning, to which the British Council is so committed and to which my noble friend Lady Thomas has already paid tribute.
	The noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will give us enormous insights into the workings of the European Union and of the Commission, and he has already shared much of his wisdom with us today. His record as an EU Commissioner is superb. I know that I speak for noble Lords on all sides of the House when I say that we look forward very much to the contribution we know he is going to make, and we are longing for him to share with the House his wide experience in general and his specific his knowledge of Europe as a Commissioner and of the wider EU, along with his passion for life-long learning that has emerged so strongly today. He will bring great lustre to this place and I know that we all look forward to hearing many contributions from him.
	I also thank my noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood for what she has already said in this debate, and for her skill in chairing Sub-Committee G of the European Union Committee. I must tell your Lordships how much I enjoyed being part of that committee for this inquiry. I started off as a new Peer, and it was fascinating to watch how the committee worked, as well as to see how a great deal of evidence, both oral and written, could be absorbed by the committee and its wonderful Clerk, Gordon Baker, and his staff in such a short time. We had wonderful special advisers as well.
	Others have dealt with other aspects of the report. However, I was left with one overriding concern at the end of the hearings and having read the evidence. Time and again we heard evidence from people involved in one or another of the four programmes of exchange in the integrated action programmes for life-long learning: Erasmus, Leonardo, Grundtvig and Comenius. We heard real passion and enthusiasm from teachers in schools, in further and higher education and in some of the organisations involved.
	It was apparent, however, that this enthusiasm was present despite the incredible bureaucracy, delays in being paid, difficulties in covering administration costs and other factors that make participation hard. This is when we in this country want to encourage language learning and exchanges, and want to get our schoolchildren and our student populations, not to mention their teachers, to have a more international outlook. I can say this with all the compliments to the British Council that were made in all the written and oral evidence that we got.
	I shall give your Lordships some examples. Marguerite Hogg, European projects co-ordinator at Thomas Danby College in Leeds, raised many issues with us. She said social security was one of the issues, the financing of language tuition another. The situation of full-time students who claim the educational maintenance allowance for their time abroad, when they could be penalised for being away from their host institutions, is another issue that people raised.
	Ray Kirtley, from the international resources centre for schools and colleges at the University of Hull, argued that one of his main interests is particularly how we can help local education authorities to encourage schools in more disadvantaged areas to become involved. Another enthusiast, he finds the bureaucracy appalling and, as he made clear, unnecessary.
	It is no surprise that our 14th recommendation on the Comenius programme was that,
	"the Commission should look more closely at what needs to be done to encourage greater awareness and participation in Comenius and to remove unnecessary . . . obstacles which impede effective participation and place unfair burdens on the dedicated organisers of these programmes, especially in smaller schools".
	The Government have promised in their response that they will carefully review the revised version of EU financial regulations, which impose standard processes on applicants and institutions, even where the level of funding is comparatively small.
	What the Government do not reflect in their response, however, is what was so apparent to the sub-committee: that there is huge dedication on the part of teachers and organisers of these programmes, and that some of these, in the smaller schools particularly, face real difficulties. The least they should expect from the UK Government is recognition of their dedication, rather than a bland statement of the Government's commitment—one shared, I am sure, by the whole House—to reduce bureaucracy.
	I could go on, but time is short. We need an assurance from the Government that they will do more to recognise the difficulties faced by people trying to organise children, young people and, indeed, older people taking part in these programmes, and that they will recognise that those who do so, against all these difficulties, are a form of social entrepreneur. Social entrepreneurship is something this Government hold dear. Will the Minister reflect on that? Could not more be done to help those organising such exchanges against the odds? Perhaps they could be rewarded in a variety of ways: financial, time off in lieu, or the sort of recognition we also give to head teachers these days—that is, honours.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I too welcome the spirited speech of my noble friend Lord Kinnock and congratulate him. We look forward to having him as a colleague.
	I am delighted that we are holding this debate. I was privileged to sit on the European Union Committee under the able chairing of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, and with colleagues who were knowledgeable and committed.
	I shall speak today about a specific aspect of life-long learning; that is, the teaching and learning of foreign languages, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and others. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, touched on structures in foreign language learning.
	I suppose that I should declare an interest as a graduate in, and former teacher of, modern languages, although that was some time ago. The issue of teaching and learning languages attracted much press attention following our report. A great deal of that attention was critical. I want the Minister to give some reassurances that the Government are dedicated to improving the state of modern language life-long learning.
	In preparing for today's debate, I consulted reports from the DfES; the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority; Ofsted; and independent organisations such as the Association for Language Learning, the Centre for Information on Language Teaching and the National Advisory Centre on Early Language Learning. Those reports make for some disturbing reading.
	I am concerned particularly about the growing gap between state and independent sector schools in language teaching. In only 30 per cent of state schools is a foreign language compulsory at key stage 4; in 70 per cent it is optional. Languages are compulsory in 97 per cent of independent schools at key stage 4 and optional in only 3 per cent. I wonder what we can do about this.
	The Nuffield Languages Inquiry points out that while we speak a universal language,
	"in a smart and competitive world, exclusive reliance on English leaves the UK vulnerable and dependent on the linguistic competence and goodwill of others. It puts young people at a growing disadvantage in the recruitment market".
	The report points out that while there have been positive developments, in 2000 at least, the Government had no coherent strategy and,
	"a patchwork of often unrelated initiatives. There is no rational path of learning from primary school to university and beyond".
	I think that we have tried to develop a rational path and to pull initiatives together, but I would welcome the Minister's comments.
	In 2004, Stephen Twigg, who was then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for State in the Department for Education and Skills, spoke about the national language strategy, Languages for All: Languages for Life. He recommitted the Government to delivering opportunities for all key stage pupils to learn a foreign language by the end of the decade and to increasing the number of people who study foreign languages in further and higher education and in work-based learning. Investment of £10 million per year was promised and a National Director for Languages appointed. What progress have we made on this?
	We clearly have an awareness of the problem and good intentions. Last year, the DfES report, Languages For All: From Strategy To Delivery, noted progress, as did the report, A Boost for Modern Foreign Languages. In addition, research on foreign language provision at primary and middle schools and at university is going on. Pathfinder schemes have been set up under the National Advisory Centre on Early Language Learning. It was useful to see a section entitled "Transforming our Language Capability" in the Government's 2004 education strategy, Putting the World into World Class Education, which was brought up in evidence to our committee.
	However, the UK Socrates-Erasmus Council is critical of the Government's lack of support for their programmes and lack of clarity about strategy for the programmes and,
	"the degree of priority which the Government attaches to them".
	This is disappointing. People should have the opportunity to live a language by spending time in suitable programmes abroad.
	Of course, languages have to be well taught. I was interested to read an article produced by the National Centre for Languages on approaches to teaching. It considered the language-learning process in the common European framework of reference. It recommended three things: that learners are exposed to a rich input of the target language; that they have an opportunity to interact in the language; and that they are motivated to learn. We need to consider imaginative approaches to language teaching, such as the use of new technologies, which might inspire both children and adults. In schools, curriculum time and staff expertise are essential. We frequently lack both. It seems that there is a mindset about language learning in the UK that can be either positive or negative. We must make it positive. The programmes that we discussed in the committee support the positive and need to be encouraged.
	The Government response to the committee's report is encouraging in relation to action required by the Commission, but more temperate where responsibility for action lies with the Government. That responsibility needs to be re-examined if we are serious about modern languages.
	The 2004 Qualifications and Curriculum Authority report and Ofsted reports questioned the priority given by LEAs to the funding of modern languages and their fears about fragmented provision. Although it is encouraging to see the Government's support for language learning in theory, we must focus on how that translates into action locally, especially in state schools. We also need to focus on how languages are best taught and by whom. The evidence on life-long learning given to the committee was fascinating and provided insights into how improvements can be made. I hope that we take note and look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, It was a privilege to serve on Sub-Committee D. I enjoyed it very much and learnt an enormous amount, partly due to the admirable chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. I share the overall positive view of the committee about the programme, and certainly of its potential, but agree that much better analysis is necessary, otherwise one must question the wisdom of enlarging the funding in one fell swoop to the levels envisaged without much more careful planning if the funds are really to be used well.
	I shall concentrate on the balance in the programme. At present, the programme planned for the future does not fully take on board the implications of the enormous demographic revolution taking place across Europe. That was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, in his excellent maiden speech. He and I have discussed the ageing of the population on numerous occasions and it was interesting to hear about his huge experience in European matters, among many others.
	We must, at a European level as well as nationally, change our view about what is education. Our training patterns, career paths and ways of working will have to reflect the new demographic patterns. We already do not have jobs for life, but we must understand that people need to learn, change jobs, retrain and work in new jobs throughout their life course. We hear all the time about how we can have more incentives to ensure that more people stay in work for longer during their life course. We must also give people the opportunity to be in work for longer, if they are to be encouraged to save more to have a decent retirement.
	The proportion of the budget intended to be allocated to the new programme is really out of kilter. If the Grundtvig programme, which could be one of the more successful parts of the new programme, is to succeed, it cannot do so on 3 per cent of the total budget. That is ludicrous. If we just think of the number of mature students in this country, let alone throughout Europe, who could take advantage of it, that is ludicrous. The Commission must do something to give the programme more balance when allocating resources, which really ought to reflect the numbers in qualifying groups within the population. We are, after all, the most mature continent in the world.
	I also endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, said about the appalling levels of bureaucratic nonsense. These are a real turn-off to many schools and colleges which would like to take part in the programme with more enthusiasm. They are unable to cope with the current allocation of funds, for all sorts of reasons. Compared with other countries in Europe, it is quite expensive to invite students to stay in this country. The admin funds do not cover the true costs of that, and there is nonsense in the funding which means that, in many schools and colleges, the teachers or programme administrators have no replacement if someone goes off on maternity leave. This was among the evidence that we heard. So some poor administrator, who is often also a lecturer, has to take on the administration of the programme—looking after students who come from other countries—without sufficient, additional administrative funds to make their stay here agreeable, or indeed possible. They have no staff to help in doing that, which must be looked at.
	I would also like to see more flexibility in the periods for which people are invited to come to our country, or to go to others. If we look at older students—and if life-long learning is to become a reality—then we must recognise that if one has a family, particularly with young or school-age children, it is difficult to go away for the lengthy periods suggested, or rather required at present, to make the programmes work well. So much more flexibility is needed, especially in the times for which people can go abroad. They should enjoy the experience, but not have immense problems with their family for doing so. We also need to recognise the problems that people have in rural areas, if they have to travel long distances. The funding does not consider these difficulties that people have to take on board.
	It was moving to hear evidence from college administrators about the self-confidence, pride and ambition fostered in many school and college students, particularly those coming from deprived areas of the country, or from disadvantaged groups. Once they had the possibility of taking part in these programmes, it was really encouraging to hear how much they enjoyed and benefited from them.
	I am saddened that the programmes seem to be seen by Her Majesty's Government, and by many educational establishments in our country, as rather marginal. In spite of the excellent work done by the British Council, there is not enough knowledge about what these programmes can do for people, or the opportunities they can bring. I echo the lament of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and our chairman about language learning in this country—and how poor performance in that affects our trading position across Europe. That does not bode well for our shared aims in Europe from the Lisbon agenda—to be part of the most highly skilled and successful continent in the world.
	It was also interesting, and rather sad, to learn that many young people from other European countries who want to learn English—now the lingua franca in Europe, after all—choose not to come to the UK but to other European countries, particularly to Spain, in order to learn English. We must do something about that if the programme is to expand. I do not think that they go to Spain just for the sunshine but because it is rather expensive here. There is insufficient support and funding and administrative costs are too high to make a visit to this country—with our great history, which we share with so many of our European neighbours—a profoundly enjoyable and interesting experience for the many students who ought to come to enjoy it.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, I am particularly grateful to be with noble Lords today. As I set out from my flat off Russell Square to take my usual bus from Woburn Place I heard the explosion that ripped off the top of one of those buses which are my habitual means of transport. In the wake of that heinous crime, I was particularly grateful to the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, who declared,
	"We are all Londoners now".
	It is perhaps good that we are talking about the importance of an EU integrated action for our common values today.
	I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Kinnock for the opportunity to hear his second maiden speech. He is the finest orator of his generation. My wife and I were grateful for his inspired address to our comrades of the Cheshire West and Wirral constituency in Ellesmere Port in 1994. I am grateful, too, to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and all her staff and advisers for the report that we have produced and for her tour d'horizon in presenting it today. My contribution will be a smorgasbord of thoughts.
	The integrated action programme deals with lifelong learning which is thought to be an integral part of the Lisbon agenda. However, is the Minister as worried as I am at the reformulation by President Barroso of the objectives of the Lisbon agenda, from which I fear that lifelong learning might fall off the edge as it becomes more economically focused? Can he tell us that this programme will contribute to Europe's competitiveness? It is economical and should be retained and supported.
	It is also part of a topical debate that chimes with Prime Minister Blair's concerns that we currently spend more on the CAP than on research and development, education and training, transport and other infrastructure, which are designed to generate jobs and prosperity.
	A second worry is that the existing programmes, which we found were very good, were often cut off from mainstream education. That must be corrected. We discovered a wealth of enthusiastic and committed practitioners involved in those programmes. I highlight the bureaucrats, the educational administrators, those doing the EU programmes from the University of Kent and the animateurs stimulating schools in Bristol and East Yorkshire to take up the programmes. We should remember that they who stand and administrate also serve. I also highlight the teachers and lecturers involved. Mention has already been made of the three school heads in Suffolk who combined to give children experience of the European Union, bringing parents into the process, which must be highly beneficial. The Government have not squandered their goldmine of unsung heroes and can help, for instance, by relieving the small schools that must pay for supply staff when teachers embark on these important programmes.
	We could also help by avoiding the red tape that sometimes floods the opportunities for people participating in these programmes. These EU programmes deal with very small amounts of money. We should ensure that the audits demonstrate a light touch but still deter the—very rare—light-fingered.
	In the FE sector, the Learning and Skills Council worryingly evoked EU rules that stopped it cross-subsidising some of these very small funds from ESF. Why is that the case? We should sweep that kind of bureaucracy away. The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, mentioned Grundtvig and I know that the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, would have particularly liked to have focused on that issue today. I also ask: why is it 3 per cent? Why so small an apportionment of the funds available for this important area of adult and continuing education?
	Yesterday, I presided over a lunch at my Alma Mater, the University of Warwick, where I met a woman who has benefited from the 2+2 programme offered by the university. In the first two years mothers with young children are able to concentrate their lessons between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock so that they can deal with the children going to school or wherever and still start on the road of doing an important degree.
	I also want to turn to languages. I am the proud father of my son, Adam, who got a first in Russian and French last week. I was very pleased to see his graduation. But I am anxious about government language policy. I do not think that it is well focused on the single European market. Our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has already highlighted the CILT report and has quoted the piece that I was going to use, so I shall quote another piece that emphasises not just the business case for language in doing deals, but also the economic case for languages. It is,
	"not a call for a narrow 'vocational' educational curriculum, but for high quality, culturally rich language teaching for all our young people".
	We should not neglect that opportunity for our young people.
	The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, also mentioned the importance of business involvement in these programmes. I share his disappointment that the CBI was reluctant to make a contribution. Again, this is part and parcel of the Lisbon agenda and business must be part and parcel of the integrated approach that we are trying to develop.
	The small business sector is particularly important. It should be brought into these programmes. We have some evidence that small businesses are being helped and encouraged but they are the pioneers in the small market and we must ensure that they have adequate language skills to work their way round Europe and find British jobs round Europe. They should also be able to participate wholeheartedly in the further development of these programmes. I am very happy to have been associated with this report and I hope that the Government take it up with the energy that it deserves.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I warmly welcome the opportunity to be present at this debate. Indeed, I have learnt a great deal about the problems this EU programme faces from listening to your Lordships. It was a particular pleasure to hear the wonderfully informative maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock. I look forward to being present for at least some of the next 35 years. I am sure he will be contributing to many debates.
	Above all, I welcome this debate because like the Select Committee and almost all noble Lords who have spoken I am deeply disturbed by the declining capacity for language learning in this country. As the Committee says in its report, we are already falling seriously behind in language learning capacity. That will surely seriously limit British ability to take a full part in and benefit from these EU programmes.
	It has much wider implications for the employability and cultural awareness of the coming generation of our countrymen and women. Fundamentally, as the committee says, it,
	"will severely hamper the country's ability to protect and promote our interests abroad and to compete successfully",
	not just in the EU but around the world.
	I know that under the National Languages Strategy the Government plan to offer language learning to all primary school children by 2010. Indeed, I congratulate the Government on the fact that the percentage of schools already doing that has almost doubled in two years. But, at the same time, it is surely madness no longer to make it compulsory beyond the age of 14. I believe that that will be seen as a serious mistake.
	I applaud the first stage of that programme, although heaven knows how long it will take to implement it or where the language teachers will come from. Certainly it must be right to start young, when children's ability to absorb, or mop up, a new language is at its height. I can only say that that approach certainly worked for our three children, who all started their education at the Lycée Franc"ais de Londres at the age of four. Having been brought up during the war, my own foreign language ability was, and alas remains, pretty inadequate but, as I had a multilingual father, I was determined that our children should do better. Now that they are grown up, it has been hugely to their advantage in every way to be fluent in one, and in two cases, two foreign languages.
	So, quite apart from the detail of the undoubtedly valuable European programmes contained in the report, I warmly welcome the Select Committee's emphatic recommendation that the Government should,
	"carry out an urgent reappraisal of language teaching policy, not only for the implications it will have for United Kingdom participation in the new EU programme but much more widely".
	There is a drastic need for urgent action. As I have mentioned previously when language learning for young children has been discussed in your Lordships' House, surely a pilot could be set up using children's favourite cartoons in a foreign language. It could involve volunteer foreign language speakers and teachers' assistants—whoever is right for the job—operating under trained teacher guidance. Most DVDs are already offered with the option of being played in one of several languages. So this kind of approach is technically possible and surely must be worth experimenting with.
	I have a second, more specific, point to make before I sit down, and it relates to the position of older or part-time students. The Select Committee rightly doubts,
	"the Commission's commitment to genuine life-long learning",
	and it urges,
	"more innovative use of ICT and suitable distance-learning packages . . . to overcome obstacles . . . for older participants".
	In particular, it urges the Commission to,
	"incorporate and disseminate the experience gained by successful distance-learning providers",
	such as our own Open University. Incidentally, I hope that our Government will find a way to ensure that the OU, which is of invaluable help to older, disabled and housebound students, is able to maintain its high international reputation. As your Lordships know, the fear is that it will lose valuable staff as a result of what many regard as an inequitable distribution of government funds and student allowances resulting from the otherwise very necessary and brave decision on top-up fees.
	So I hope that the Minister can specifically assure us that the case to make more innovative use of ICT and suitable distance-learning packages is being pressed upon the Commission. We may be falling behind in language learning—indeed, we are—but we have been blazing the trail of quality distance-learning ever since the OU was started by the Wilson government. So let us be sure that we exploit that achievement to the full and, at the same time, take seriously the need for urgent action to remedy one of our gravest national faults: the temptation to believe that we need not bother with foreign languages because the rest of the world will learn English. That is no longer the case, even if it ever was so.

Lord Giddens: My Lords, let me first get in line to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, on his maiden speech. I note that he took some time after coming in to give it, and he chose to do so in a relatively low-profile debate, from which I deduce he is an inexperienced public speaker. In those circumstances, he performed amazingly well. It is marvellous to have him here.
	I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and her colleagues, on the report. I am broadly supportive, as other noble Lords have been, at the report's findings. It is broadly supportive of the Commission's proposals, and the Government's response shows that they are broadly supportive of both. Having said that, I am not sure that it would be my most favourite bedtime reading.
	I am a strong, almost fanatical supporter of the European Union, but it tends to breed a somewhat dry language, compared with the noble aspirations for which it stands. The term "life-long learning" trips quite pleasingly off the tongue; it has a nice alliterative sense. Why is it so important now, in particular, and what does it mean? I shall spend two to three minutes discussing the issues.
	When considering the context of the emergence of the notion of life-long learning, it reflects three big changes happening in our society and economy. First, many have already spoken about the knowledge-based economy, but it should be called a knowledge and service economy. It is important to stress that, because the idea has many critics. Many have tried to rubbish the notion, but it refers to some of the most profound changes happening in our economy.
	A generation ago over 40 per cent of the labour force in Britain worked in manufacturing, but that proportion is now down to 15 per cent by some calculations. I have even seen a recent one putting it at as low as 12 per cent. Once upon a time 40 per cent of the population worked in agriculture and, in a certain sense, manufacturing is tracking that. It means that well over 80 per cent of the population have to work in jobs that demand either quite high-level symbolic or personal skills. It is a radical transformation in our society.
	Secondly, there is the impact of technological change. We did not know until recently the pace of such change, but now we can measure it. One of the best ways of doing that is to look at the level of job destruction—not just in manufacturing but in service jobs, which is now 10 per cent above what it was 15 years ago. That means that the workforce must be prepared and able to countenance change, and to live with it.
	Thirdly, there is demographic change, which has already been referred to by noble Lords. It is not just about an ageing society but the low birth rate. One of the major problems for Europe is the low birth rate. When considering pensions in relation to that combination, the conclusion is that we cannot solve the pensions issue by increasing contributions. It can be solved only by having a higher proportion of older people in the workforce. In some European countries, there are virtually zero people—especially men—above the age of 55 in the workforce. The proportion in this country is also very low.
	I suggest that those three categories give us a way to define life-long learning and to look at its Europeanisation. Life-long learning is not just a continuous process; it is more of a staccato sort of process.
	In relation to the knowledge economy, which was the first issue I mentioned, we have to start learning earlier. Life-long learning means learning not just to the end of one's life but learning from the beginning of one's life. Reference was made to language learning. We know that very young children can learn languages, and we also know that they can learn a lot more than originally thought at age two and three.
	It also means pushing learning upwards, which is the prime feature behind the need for the expansion of our universities. I completely endorse the Government's wish to expand universities to cover 50 per cent of the population. In the kind of society towards which we are moving it is crucial for both citizenship and economic purposes.
	Secondly, because of the high level of job replacement there must be training and retraining. Here we need the kind of collaboration between state and private employers that has been mentioned. But we also need more opportunities for middle-aged and older people to gain access to colleges and universities, but across Europe we are not doing that very well.
	Finally, we need to break down what you might call the "retirement ghetto". Ageing is a problem across Europe but it is also an opportunity. Life-long learning can become a reality if we pay greater attention to what happens in the later years of life. We must do so because of its consequences for, among other things, the pensions problem.
	I am surprised that there is so little in the committee's report and the Commission's proposals about this crucial third stage of life-long learning. Other noble Lords have referred to this issue, but why should the Grundtvig programme be so extraordinarily and desperately the poor relation of the other two? Even calling it the "Grundtvig" programme seems to condemn it to obscurity. I am supposed to be a scholar, but I have never heard of Grundtvig. I see from the report that Grundtvig was an 18th Century Danish cleric and writer, but what does that mean? When compared with Erasmus and Leonardo, no one knows about Grundtvig.
	The report brings out quite well the insufficiencies of the Grundtvig programme, to which other noble Lords have referred. The report should have been stronger on this issue. As other noble Lords have said, the report states that only 3 per cent of the new budget is devoted to the programme and that that,
	"at first sight seems rather shocking".
	It seems fairly shocking at second sight too. The Leonardo programme is not very well geared up to older learners and the support they need. We must Europeanise these matters more effectively.
	The House of Lords report concludes that Grundtvig is,
	"an acid test of the Commission's commitment to genuine lifelong learning".
	The committee was not convinced. It is right not to be, but it should have made its conclusions much stronger.
	This is not a day for humour given the outrage in London, but we must all push on. I was trying to end my intervention with a joke on life-long learning but such jokes are hard to come across. Instead, I shall offer your Lordships a limerick which pokes fun at me, at education and at university teachers. I do not know whether I am allowed to tell limericks in the House of Lords but I can assure noble Lords that this one is not salacious. It reads:
	"There once was a student called Besser,
	Whose knowledge got lesser and lesser,
	It at last got so small,
	He knew nothing at all,
	And now he's a university professor".

Lord Moser: My Lords, I wish I were clever enough to answer with another limerick, but I cannot. I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, on his maiden speech, and also on all that he has already done over these many decades to enrich our lives and inspire us. He has certainly done that for me throughout the years in which I have been interested in public and political life. It is lovely to think that we will be able to hear him on future occasions.
	I was very pleased to be part of this committee, and would like to add my gratitude to the Chairman and our clerk for a very readable report. I read it in bed once or twice, and it did not send me to sleep.
	I shall confine my remarks to the university side of lifelong learning. We discussed and had witnesses on all the various phases of the complex world of lifelong learning, including the informal as well as formal. However, we could not cover everything in the report which, of course, I totally endorse.
	The Erasmus programme is rightly regarded as a respected flagship of the whole educational training programme. We all approached it with enthusiasm and a touch of idealism. For me, one of the disappointments of the whole operation was that not all our witnesses—nor all the evidence, even from government—were as fully idealistic as I was.
	Erasmus deals with the whole area of linkages—scholarship, research, teaching and so on—between our countries, and is rightly regarded as one of the bits of cement for the European future. That explains our enthusiasm.
	There is also much evidence—some, but not all, anecdotal—that Erasmus exchanges enrich the lives of youngsters who go abroad or come here from abroad. Very remarkable stories came our way, and I have no doubt that it is a magnificent programme when fully achieved. Personally, however, I believe that we are very far from fully achieving it in this country.
	In passing, because Erasmus has been a success story, the Commission proposes a pretty massive expansion: by some 50 per cent over the next six or seven years. We in the committee support expansion, but not as ambitious an expansion as is proposed. It is not just that it is difficult to see it happening in terms of numbers, but also that, if expansion is a priority, it ought to be in expanding grants to students, universities and so on—in other words, to funding existing programmes, rather than just shoving more numbers into Erasmus. I hope that the Government will address the central issue of Erasmus funding and grants to students, teachers and institutions.
	This brings me to an absolutely key point. Our enthusiasm for Erasmus was diluted a little by the poor participation that we found on the British side. That goes both ways: inwards and outwards. This is most easily shown in the figures. We had lots of evidence that Britain is no longer the preferred destination; it is now France or Spain. British universities do not seem all that keen on encouraging inward migration to their numbers. Incoming students do not bring fees, they cost money and there is not enough money for university departments to cope with the administration. That is one disappointment.
	More disappointing to myself and the committee is the outward situation: in 1994–95, 12,000 students from this country participated in the programme; by 2003-4, the number was down to 8,000. The Spanish and French numbers have risen; the total has risen; but our figures have fallen very substantially.
	Once again the language issue comes up. Britain's situation on languages, to which several noble Lords have referred, is nothing short of pathetic and a disgrace. I know that the Government have in place a number of activities but they do not yet measure up to what I regard as a shameful national situation. It is certainly one of the factors that hinder British students who go abroad. There are other problems, but that is almost the main one. There are financial problems in meeting the cost of going abroad and universities are strapped for money. Therefore, the whole activity is fairly marginal.
	Although in this country we have a rather splendid story to tell about lifelong learning, not least informal lifelong learning; the Open University, which has been mentioned; and other kinds of distance learning, we have everything to go for in encouraging more students to go abroad and experience excellent continental universities and, above all, getting students to come to this country.
	I end by expressing my enthusiasm for the report and its recommendations, for the Erasmus programme and all that it can do for Europe, but expressing quite severe personal disappointment at the relatively poor take-up in both directions. In my view, that calls for a serious government review of both directions of exchanges so that we can play a bigger part in this excellent programme.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I join others in congratulating my noble friend Lady Thomas on the very lucid and interesting report that she and her Committee produced and in saying how much I enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock.
	The proposals described in the report relate to a series of programmes that provide for exchange visits, networking, partnership and joint teaching projects between students, teachers and trainers in schools—the Comenius programme; universities—the Erasmus programme; vocational education and training—the Leonardo programme; and adult education—the Grundtvig programme. Those four combine with a series of other programmes and fit into the framework of what is currently called the Socrates programme. In addition, we have the Jean Monnet programme, promoting European studies in universities across Europe, the Minerva programme, which is related to ICT, and the Lingua programme, which relates to language teaching.
	The new proposals for the integrated action programme for lifelong learning provide greater linkage between some of those other programmes. In particular, as I understand it—I was not a member of the committee—it is proposed that the Erasmus and Leonardo programmes should be better integrated together, especially at the higher levels of vocational training. It is also proposed to introduce what is termed the transversal programme—a most unfortunate term, if I may say so—which is a cross-cutting programme that will pick up on a number of issues such as policy development, language promotion, data collection and evaluation and dissemination. As we have heard, that new integrated programme will cost something like three and a half times more than the earlier set of programmes. With the new programme, we have been promised a simplification of procedures, application and monitoring, a reduction in barriers to participation, better co-ordination of programmes and more devolution to local agencies, such as the British Council.
	As a teacher at Sussex University, I had a good deal of involvement with the Erasmus programme. After two years of study at the university, many of our students, some of whom were major students in language but took other subjects such as economics or science and did language as a minor subject, went abroad in their third year and then came back. I saw indeed the transformation from little Brits to little Europeans in that process. As many noble Lords have suggested, it was so encouraging talking to them when they came back and seeing the degree to which their minds had been opened to new ideas. They came back stimulated and with a much wider and better view of the world in many respects.
	In reading the report I therefore found myself greatly endorsing the conclusions reached in paragraphs 195 and 196:
	"We . . . conclude that participation in these programmes has enriched the lives of participants and contributed to the development of networks of useful cooperation between individuals and institutions in participating countries. Educational institutions in those countries have undoubtedly been strengthened, in-line with the Barcelona objectives.
	We further conclude that the better understanding of the political, economic, commercial, historic and cultural significance of participating countries and European institutions which these programmes offer to those who take part in them, and the personal institutional links that can be developed from them, should be of lasting value".
	Yes, that is certainly true. But here I depart from the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock: I am not confident that there are direct links from this to the Lisbon objectives of competitiveness. Yes, in indirect ways—the report brings this out—there are enormous gains, which we would be foolish to throw away. However, in respect of the direct links to competitiveness; to what firms want, if we are concerned with training people better, the best thing we can do with our young apprentices might be to take them to Germany and train them in Germany for the full three or four years of their apprenticeship rather than to give them a chance to go for just two to three weeks to see what goes on over there.
	I do not discount the advantages to their trainers of going over there, but I found myself questioning the statement by Professor Vickerman, quoted in paragraph 84, who,
	"argued that increasing levels of ability and understanding between people of different Member States were a vital component of the Lisbon Agenda",
	of competitiveness. They are a vital component to the European agenda, but I am not sure that they are necessarily to the competitiveness.
	I endorse very much the conclusion:
	"We conclude that the proposed new Programme is broadly consistent with the Lisbon objective of making the EU a more competitive knowledge-based economy",
	but the report stresses the long-term rather than short-term payoffs.
	I also query the title. Is it really an integrated action programme for life-long learning? What is being proposed here? It is access to a series of European programmes which, if one gains access to them, gives one the chance for wider cultural links and for learning more about what is going on elsewhere. But what are the integral parts of life-long learning, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, was saying? It is in many senses the ability to go back into education and train and retrain.
	Education rightly remains a national priority. It is a question of whether our national system gives us that advantage. As the noble Lord, Lord Moser, said, in Britain we have for a number of reasons a good system that enables people when they get older to train and retrain. I pick up what the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said: there are still many holes. If we are really to build in this country an integrated programme of life-long learning we are looking to the Government to do it, and it is for the Government to provide, for example, some equality for part-time students to the position of full-time students in our higher education institutions.
	I again question whether this is the right term, because as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said, to too great an extent and not just in this country, these European programmes are marginal. They are add-ons to the national education system. They do not provide an integrated programme of life-long learning, and we across Europe have to create such programmes in our own countries if we are to move in that direction.
	I endorse what has been said about languages. The current position in this country is utterly disgraceful. Whether we will get to the Barcelona objective of having two modern languages taught in our schools and not just one, I do not know. It is good to see that we are beginning to get the primary school programme up and running, but the disastrous situation in our secondary schools, in which modern languages are dropping away, is doing far more harm than good. It is indeed a sad situation.
	I echo what has been said about the small amount of the Grundtvig grant. I was interested to hear during our NIACE briefing that Grundtvig was seen as being important, and opening up ideas about best practice in adult education. This is precisely what one should be getting from these European programmes.
	I shall finish with two queries. One is about evaluations. It is extremely important that these programmes are monitored and given proper evaluation. Almost inevitably, if you survey those who participate in a programme and have aspirations to do so again, and if they have enjoyed it, as most of them do, you get a positive response. However, within the European Union we often use as evaluators for these programmes the very people who initially set them up, and whose own ideas were incorporated in their strategic direction. It is important that we do not have this degree of incestuousness in evaluation.
	Lastly, I shall refer to paragraph 29 of the recommendations, and the Government's response. This is the issue of the international strategy on the part of British Government. The Government say firmly that they have three high priorities: equipping children for life in a global society, engaging with international partners, especially Africa, in achieving their goals, and maximising the contribution of education, training and the universities and university research to overseas trade and overseas investment.
	If this is their aim, why are the Government making it more difficult for overseas students to come to this country by raising visa costs, and even by threatening to withdraw the right of appeal over their visas? Why are the Government doing that when we know that it is their aim to bring more overseas students to Britain if they can?

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, for initiating this debate on such an important issue. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, on his thoughtful and, if I may say so, mildly controversial maiden speech. This is no bad thing. I broke that convention some years ago. It is a pleasure to have the noble Lord's expertise and experience in this House, and we look forward to his further contributions to our debates.
	We are now at an exciting time as we embark on our EU presidency, although, in the light of today's events, I use the word "excitement" with some trepidation. I hope that the Government, who profess to have education at the top of their agenda, will ensure that it is near the top of our priority list during the next six months.
	Having read the meaty report produced by the European Union Committee on the proposed EU action plan for education, I can only express my gratitude for the splendid job they have done. The report is obviously the result of extensive research, evidence-taking and consultation. I find myself almost entirely in agreement with their well founded recommendations, and I hope the conclusions encourage the Government to play a central role in influencing the final shape and details of the proposed programme.
	The report focuses on the integration of current EU-funded education and training programmes in the revised action plan due to start in 2007 and run until 2013. This is the next step in a coherent and laudable strategy to encourage growth of the EU as a competitive knowledge-based economy. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said about referring to it as knowledge-based. He added the word "service"; I would like to add to that a "creative-based" economy, but an economy sharing a common aim for education and vocational training by working on mobility and co-operation within the EU.
	The report contains a great deal of detail about the strengths and weaknesses of the current EU education and training programmes. It also highlights the strengths and some of the potential shortcomings of the new integrated action plan. What struck me most about the report was that there seemed to be a recurring theme of making the new action plan user-friendly. Several issues are at stake here.
	First, we must be convinced that the revised programme will cut out some of the extensive bureaucracy, to which all noble Lords have referred, and administrative time-wasting, which is a barrier to the involvement of our educational and training establishments in the EU schemes currently on offer. Time and again, the report highlights the fact that small and voluntary organisations have found the bureaucracy disproportionate and a barrier to their participation in EU-funded schemes.
	Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger highlighted the huge dedication of teachers and organisers of those programmes in the face of real bureaucratic hurdles. The Commission talked about simplification, but there are still real concerns. For instance, it is unclear how the cross-cutting role of the transversal programme will work in practice, and fears that it may increase bureaucracy. I note that chapter 13 of the report states that it was the new financial regulations brought in in 2003 that have caused time-consuming and bureaucratic hurdles to participation. It is surely important to work on the principle of joined-up government to ensure that burdensome regulation is kept to a minimum.
	Secondly, it is the Government's job to work much harder at promoting awareness and increasing participation in the current and soon-to-be-revised programmes. From the evidence submitted to the Committee, it was suggested that UK participation in current EU programmes was some way behind that of our EU colleagues because of the failure of the Government to promote the schemes sufficiently. That point was noted by the noble Lord, Lord Moser, who referred to the problem, especially with the Erasmus programme, as both inward and outward—inward because British universities do not seem all that keen on inward migration of students; and outward because the number of our students going out into Europe has fallen.
	I hope that the Government will take seriously the comments of the committee in paragraph 278 that,
	"witnesses from across the spectrum of the education and training sectors are still unclear about the Government's strategy for these programmes and the degree of priority which the Government attaches to them".
	The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, asked whether those programmes were embedded in government policy and used the word "disconnect", which was a recurring theme.
	We need greater information dissemination so that it is not only the few dedicated and persevering individuals who take advantage of the education and training programmes. The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said that the programmes were seen by too many, including the Government, as marginal.
	Thirdly, if the revised programme is to be user-friendly, it must be flexible. By this I mean flexible for all adult learners as well as students; flexible for small organisations, which may not be able to match funding, as required by the Leonardo programme, as well as larger ones that can; and flexible for schools who cannot afford to provide supply teaching to allow their teachers to have the chance to travel to Europe on the Comenius programme.
	The new revised and integrated programme, and the approach of the Government in adopting it, needs to focus on all three of those issues—minimal bureaucracy; promoting awareness; and embracing flexibility—to succeed in being as user-friendly as possible. That will allow more people involved in education and vocational training—students as well as teachers—to take advantage of the benefits which the EU schemes have demonstrably shown that they can offer.
	I wholeheartedly agree with the serious concerns voiced by the committee about the massive increase in the budget. Paragraph 248 of the report tells us that:
	"The total figure of €13.620 billion for the period 2007–13 is more than three and a half times the total budget for the current programmes".
	I certainly agree that there must be extensive consultation to evaluate whether this translates into more value for money. I note with interest that the report states that many of the targets are too ambitious. Perhaps the massive budget is aiming too high. We should not merely pour money away without some transparency about what results and effects we can expect. I also note the caveat at Paragraph 191 that:
	"Witnesses from colleges taking part in the Leonardo and Grundtvig programmes thought that qualitative assessment would be difficult when so many of the benefits for individuals were essentially subjective".
	I hope that the Government will press hard for some more evaluative work to be done before such a huge budget is committed to the new integrated programme. I note that in Paragraph 259 the committee questions whether the proposed funds may be spread too thinly and fail to improve some of the funding deficiencies that have prevented the present programmes from being fully effective and reaching more disadvantaged people.
	I also share the disappointment of the committee at the damning conclusions on the teaching of foreign languages, particularly in this country compared to our European neighbours, which is something to which all noble Lords have referred. I want to see a concerted effort from the Government to address the further decline of language skills within our schools and a solid commitment to pulling up standards in the UK, particularly after the article in the Financial Times yesterday, which commented that we are now bottom of a table of 28 countries in competence in other languages. That is embarrassing.
	The language focus of the expanded EU programme through the cross-cutting transversal programme will not benefit our educational establishments unless there is a long-term investment in language and a drastic reappraisal of the way in which languages are taught in this country. My noble friend Lord Trefgarne spoke about the driving skills policy that helped us to respond strongly in recent years to the challenges of the global economy. But surely, language is a crucial element and skill in that challenge. That point was made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey, Lady Greengross and Lady Howe of Idlicote. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said that her children were given the fantastic springboard of the chance to go to the Lycée. There is a huge problem. As I see my own children growing up in a world where competition will be so enormous for all of them, I cannot express passionately enough that they must have languages as one of their key skills.
	I have taken up much of your Lordships' time. There is much to celebrate in the new integrated EU programme. There is also much work to be done. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the excellent recommendations of the EU committee will form a central part of the discussions, development and negotiations concerning the new action plan during the coming months.
	I wish that more time could be given to responding further to some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, about life-long learning. Because a lot of us are getting older, my immediate reaction was to say that that is the heart of it. In the 21st century, it is surely right to think about continuing the learning process for each and every one of us throughout our lives. In terms of becoming an ageing population, retirement time and the reduction in the birth rate, life-long learning is of crucial importance to the future of this country.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, it is a real honour to be the first speaker from this Bench to welcome my noble friend Lord Kinnock to our debates. I hesitate to congratulate my noble friend on his speech; to be frank, it would be like an apprentice complimenting Rembrandt on his latest painting—being so new to the studio myself. I will simply say that my noble friend knows the extraordinary regard and affection in which he is held, and his standing as, in many ways, the prime architect of Labour's rebirth and return to government.
	It is also directly relevant to our debate to pay tribute to my noble friend's latest public service in taking on the chairmanship of the British Council, bringing to it his huge energy and inspirational leadership. The council has done an impressive job in recent years under its excellent chief executive, David Green—in particular, helping to stimulate the surge in overseas student numbers, including students from within the EU and wider Europe. That increase in numbers still continues. Now that the London 2012 bid has been successful, the British Council will have a still higher profile in the years ahead. We are extremely fortunate that my noble friend will be at the helm.
	The House is indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and to Sub-Committee G for its thorough and incisive report which we are debating. As several noble Lords have said in our valuable debate, the report could hardly be more timely—given the debate on budgetary reform in the EU, and Britain's assumption of the presidency, at the heart of which is the Lisbon agenda. Nothing is more important than skills, education and life-long learning in achieving the Lisbon objective of making the EU, by 2010, the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. Or, to accept the amendments made by my noble friend Lord Giddens and the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, a knowledge, service and creative industry-based economy.
	Your Lordships' report, and our debate, will help inform the Government's stance as we undertake the presidency—including the chairmanship by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills of the Education and Youth Council. There will be an informal meeting of education ministers in London next week, and a full meeting of the council in November. I can certainly give the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, the assurance she sought—that the proposed EU integrated programme for lifelong learning will be central to these discussions. We will seek to craft them to meet our own concerns.
	I am also sure that the report of your Lordships' sub-committee, and our debate, will be studied by the Commission itself, not least as it draws up its report on the future of the European social model for the special European Council, which, it was agreed last week, will be held in the autumn. The Prime Minister's speech to the European Parliament last month could not have set out more clearly our high-level objectives, which I know are shared on all sides of the House. We will seek to make as much progress as possible towards them under our presidency.
	I also commend the work of the UK Erasmus-Socrates Council, the national agency for the Erasmus programme and the hard work and commitment of our universities, schools, colleges and other partners to the programmes we are debating. The council's director, John Reilly, is a fervent exponent of the value of mobility programmes.
	Your Lordships' report rightly stresses that, while the objectives of the European programmes are vital to the EU's development and cohesion, the great bulk of the effort required to attain them is organised and funded at national or sub-national level. Under the principle of subsidiarity, that should continue to be the case. We acknowledge that fact and support subsidiarity. The point was well made in that regard by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. The EU's total education and training budget this year is €613 million, compared to upwards of €500 billion being spent on education and training by the 25 member governments and their sub-national governments. Either we get integrated, lifelong learning right at the national level or we are unlikely to get it right at all.
	Even if the full 3.5 times budget increase for the EU integrated programmes were agreed, the prime movers in virtually all areas covered by the EU programmes—including student mobility, research, life-long learning, language learning and exchanges—would continue to be the member states and their institutions. Indeed, the EU's impact, even in its areas of greatest influence—such as student mobility—is often greater in its indirect than direct operation.
	For example, Erasmus, the largest of the EU's Socrates programmes, about which the noble Lord, Lord Moser, spoke, has an annual budget of about £125 million. It provides for about 135,000 students to study in EU countries other than their home country. Yet an estimated 340,000 EU students studied in other EU states in the last year for which we have figures. The majority of these 340,000 studied outside the Erasmus programme. Yet, of course, they all took advantage of the EU's legal provisions, which provide for free movement of study at no less favourable tuition rates than those applying to residents of the country in which they study.
	The point also needs to be considered in reference to the specific concerns mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Moser, about the decline in incoming and outgoing Erasmus students in the UK. I hesitate to discuss statistics with the noble Lord as I am sure that I will come to grief quite quickly. I shall acknowledge in a moment where he certainly has a very sound point in regard to the numbers leaving under the Erasmus programme. However, in terms of the numbers coming from the European Union and the wider Europe, the latest UCAS figures show a very healthy 16 per cent increase on last year in the overall number of undergraduate applications to study here from the EU 25, including non-Erasmus sources of mobility. That includes an 8.5 per cent increase from within the old EU 15.
	Similarly, the latest Euro student survey published last month shows that in seven out of a total of nine surveyed countries the UK is the first overseas destination for students who wish to leave their own country. So in terms of incoming students the overall position is very positive despite the relative change in our Erasmus position. However, in terms of outgoing students that is not the case, and I shall have more to say later about language learning in particular, which has been mentioned so powerfully in the debate.
	In its overarching recommendations the sub-committee's report calls on the Government to develop a strategy for implementing the new integrated life-long learning programme and to publish a clear statement of the importance we attach to it. We are seeking to meet both recommendations. Last November the Department for Education and Skills published a new ambitious international strategy entitled, Putting the World into World-Class Education. One of its three key goals is to equip our children, young people and adults for life in a global society and for work in a global economy. In respect of the European programmes we have set up a working group of key partners, including university representatives, the learning and skills councils and the key agencies, including the British Council and the UK Socrates Erasmus Council, chaired by my department's international strategy director, to recommend how we can increase take-up and widen participation socially in the European programmes—a very powerful point made in the sub-committee's report. The working group will report in the autumn and we shall seek to improve our own support for the programmes in the light of its recommendations.
	I now move on to four of the key areas raised in the report; namely, targets and budgets, Erasmus participation, language learning, which has been mentioned by virtually every speaker in this debate and life-long learning and the vocational programmes.
	First, as regards targets and budget, we certainly cannot accuse the Commission of failing to think big about the future of its own education and life-long learning programmes. Noble Lords referred to the action programme that proposes that one in 20 school pupils be involved in Comenius; 3 million Erasmus students be in place by 2011; 150,000 Leonardo placements per year by 2013; and 25,000 Grundtvig study visits per year also by 2013, along with a 3.5 times increase in the budget to make all that possible.
	The sub-committee raised questions about the ambition of these targets. In our view—I choose my words carefully—those questions are perfectly fairly put. As the House knows, the Government are not in a position to agree a budget for the proposed EU life-long learning programme until the overall EU budget has been agreed. The Government believe that the EU budget in the next financial perspective should not exceed 1 per cent of EU gross national income and the life-long learning programme will need to be consistent with that. However, as the Prime Minister said in his speech to the European Parliament, it cannot be right in the 21st century for the EU to spend seven times as much on agriculture than on the crucial areas for growth of research and development, science, technology, education and innovation combined. That principle will underpin the Government's stance in the forthcoming negotiations.
	On the issue of Erasmus participation, your Lordships' report rightly highlights the challenges we face. I referred a moment ago to the new group that we have established. As regards outgoing students, we are giving much wider circulation to the Study in Europe publication produced by the UK Socrates-Erasmus Council and will look to do more to increase awareness. As regards financial incentives, last year we amended the student support regulations so that Erasmus students had access to higher rates of student loans and benefited from not having to pay any tuition fees for the year they spent abroad. We are committed to maintaining that position in respect of Erasmus students after the introduction of variable fees next year, which will provide an additional incentive to prospective Erasmus students.
	However, we all know that inadequate languages are a serious barrier to wider British participation in Erasmus. I shall tackle that issue now. I will not attempt to paint a rosier picture than the facts merit. Your Lordships are too familiar with the facts for me to get very far in that regard. Our language skills as a nation are not improving as fast as we would wish, and certainly not as fast as we need. That weakness starts at school level. It was a reflection of the reality that a proportion of teenagers are not motivated to study languages in the last years of secondary school that in the previous Parliament we took the step, which has been widely criticised, including in this debate, of allowing schools not to make a modern foreign language compulsory for all students in the two years leading up to GCSE. I stress that a modern foreign language remains compulsory for the first three years of secondary school, and that language learning is an entitlement for every student up to 16 years of age.
	There has been a universal call in this debate and in your Lordships' report for a concerted programme to improve language learning in schools. We entirely accept that imperative and believe that we are meeting it. To rise to the challenge we face, the Government are taking forward three ambitious inter-related policies to improve language learning, backed up by more than £100 million of extra investment announced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills this March, specifically to support new and enhanced provision in languages.
	Let me describe the three elements. First, we shall introduce languages into the primary school curriculum systematically, overcoming a key weakness in the British system. Many speakers have said that, mostly, we start learning languages too late, hence the poor motivation by the mid and late teenage years.
	My noble friend Lady Massey referred to the difference between state and private schools in key stage 4. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said, the reason for that acute difference in key stage 4 is because of the acute difference in key stage 2 between the two sectors. In the private sector languages are nearly universal and usually well taught. The state sector has been given nowhere near the same degree of attention either to teaching or provision in the past. Hence, it is our commitment that by 2010, every child within key stage 2—7 to 11-year-olds—should have the opportunity to study a foreign language and the culture of the nation or nations that speak those languages.
	My noble friend Lady Massey, who is ever acute, asked whether we had delivered on a set of specific issues relating to that commitment. She asked whether we had yet appointed the national director for language education. We have done so; Dr Lid King was appointed last year, and I am looking forward to meeting him shortly.
	My noble friend asked what we were doing about training. To boost training to make our primary school policy possible, we have for the first time started training primary school teachers nationally, with a specific languages specialism. One thousand two hundred new teachers have already been trained, and we intend to train a further 5,000 new teachers in the next five years. In addition, we shall train 30,000 existing primary school teachers and teaching assistants to teach languages.
	We are already seeing improvements at primary level. Nearly half of all primary schools in England now offer some form of languages provision, which is up from barely one in five only four years ago, and we intend to make substantial progress in the immediate years ahead.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked whether we were making sufficient use of ICT and digital technology in the development of languages teaching. In particular, she suggested a pilot of cartoons using DVDs. I am told that we are doing precisely that. For example, last year we funded the development of digital learning materials for primary pupils in Spanish. I am told that those materials have a range of interactive games, songs and activities, including a dance mat, and that similar programmes have been developed in Japanese. We are looking to other subjects, so we are on the case. I hope to write to the noble Baroness with even more details of the other languages in which this is being made available.
	Secondly, at secondary level, we are building up an entirely new category of secondary schools that are establishing centres of excellence in language teaching in addition to their normal teaching of the national curriculum. This is taking place within the Specialist Schools Programme. There are already 200 such languages colleges, and we intend that there will be significantly more as the great majority of secondary schools enter the programme. Specifically to meet the demand for more languages colleges, we are providing bigger financial incentives to encourage them. A typical specialist school currently receives £120,000 a year over and above its standard budget to develop its specialist provision. From next April, we intend to increase that sum by £30,000 for languages colleges to make the option more attractive and to give new and existing languages colleges greater resources to share their languages expertise and facilities with other schools—both primary and secondary—in their own localities.
	The third part of our languages strategy is to improve significantly the national infrastructure to support languages learning. We have given more than £3 million this year to support the National Centre for Languages and its network of regional Comenius centres.
	In response to work on the best way to encourage people to learn languages, we are also establishing and funding an entirely new recognition scheme for language learning, for use in schools and more widely, called the "languages ladder". It is akin in its structure and philosophy to the long-established music grade system and tailored to encourage individuals to progress at their own pace, with proper recognition and incentives to progress from level to level. The new languages ladder will be available in eight languages, including all the main European languages, from this September, with a further 15 available from next year.
	The EU education and training programmes also have a valuable role to play. Of 836 Comenius-run projects in 2002, 490 had foreign languages as a curriculum theme and the take up of Comenius is increasing.
	I note the points made, particularly by the noble Baronesses, Lady Thomas and Lady Neuberger, about the operation of Comenius and the sometimes extreme levels of red tape involved for quite small sums of money for participating in the programme. We are very mindful of these concerns and we will seek to address them in partnership with local authorities.
	I turn now to life-long learning and the vocational programmes. Improving participation of the most disadvantaged in the new integrated life-long learning programme is a priority for the Government. We believe that simplified and more flexible procedures are required and, taking up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that we should make much greater use of ICT and distance learning.
	I should add that we are completely committed to the Open University. I am well aware of the concerns that have been expressed on this issue, particularly in your Lordships' House. Discussions are ongoing between the Higher Education Funding Council and the Open University, and, indeed, a number of noble Lords who have concerns about the OU are meeting my honourable friend the Higher Education Minister to discuss this matter directly.
	Under the current life-long learning programmes there are initiatives specifically for people with disabilities. In addition, Grundtvig—a title which I suspect will remain despite the bid by my noble friend Lord Giddens to have it renamed, perhaps by himself, a very distinguished sociologist—will continue. We want to see the adult learning sub-programme, Grundtvig, play a much larger part in the programme as a whole.
	Several noble Lords referred to the 3 per cent figure and whether it gives adequate recognition to Grundtvig within the overall programme. It is our policy to see a greater emphasis put on Grundtvig within the revised overall programme. Within Grundtvig itself, we want to see a much greater emphasis placed on the educational challenges of an ageing population in Europe—as rightly emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross—and on providing adults with alternative pathways to improving their skills and competencies, areas which are not covered by the current Grundtvig programme but which reflect the changing demographic reality in Europe.
	I should add that Grundtvig is currently oversubscribed in the UK—it is in a very different position to the Erasmus programme—and is clearly addressing a very real need. Both the number of applications and approvals have increased year on year.
	The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, made some telling points about employer influence. Having recently set up the sector skills councils—we welcome the noble Lord's engagement with them—we are anxious that they should play a role and have a significant input into the design of the new Leonardo projects. I shall certainly ensure that his remarks in that regard are passed on to those conducting the negotiations.
	In conclusion, we recognise the challenge ahead to imbed life-long learning and to strengthen the European dimension at every level within it. The report last November of the High Level Group, chaired by Wim Kok, on the Lisbon strategy put it starkly: if Europe is to compete in the global knowledge society, it must also invest more in its most precious asset—its people.
	We endorse that view unreservedly. It is the policy of investing in the skills of our people which we are pursuing at home. It ought to be the policy of the European Union and, as we take on the presidency of the EU, we will seek to take this agenda forward, including in the negotiations over the action programme for life-long learning. The excellent debate we have had today will help us to do that. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I rise to thank all those who have taken part in today's debate. We have gone well beyond our 7 o'clock deadline, and I am afraid that I may have contributed to that in opening the debate. The speeches have been enjoyable and interesting, and all noble Lords have contributed significant points which have added to the work of the committee.
	I thank in particular the Minister for his contribution, the tone of which, perhaps I may say, was a little more inclined towards our way of thinking than that reflected in what has been written. I shall read his words carefully because I was particularly glad to hear that a working party is to be set up to look at the value of some of these programmes. He has made many other suggestions which appear to be extremely useful and progressive in this important area of public policy.

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at sixteen minutes past seven o'clock.
	Thursday, 7 July 2005.